Stepping into the New York Public Library, the bold lion statues standing guard outside, Rochelle Smith earned her first paycheck and fell in love with libraries.
Smith now works as a reference librarian at the University of Idaho. She decided to pursue her career while working in Washington, D.C., as a grant writer.
“One year of my life that I didn’t work in a library, I really missed it,” Smith said. “I sort of looked at them longingly… I kind of thought, well maybe this is something that should actually be my job.”
Originally from Trinidad and Tobago, Smith spent part of her childhood in New Jersey and adulthood in the Mid-Atlantic Northeast.
When Smith was a child, her grandmother told her folk tales her own great grandmother had told. Smith fell in love with reading and discovering new stories. She became an avid reader.
Smith volunteered at the local library and high school and worked in her college library. She pursued her undergraduate education at Rutgers University. She also received a master’s in library information science from the University of Pittsburgh and an MFA in creative writing and poetry from UI.
After hearing some of her colleagues were moving to the Palouse, Smith visited and “completely fell in love with Moscow.”
She lived in Moscow for two years before moving away for library school. Smith came back to get her MFA after seven years. She started working at the UI library and has been here for the past 15 years.
Off shift, Smith will walk around and browse the literature, pulling books off the shelves as she peruses the stacks.
“I love the way the books smell,” Smith said. “I’m just kind of one of those people.”
Smith enjoys receiving questions through email. The library receives questions from individuals across the Pacific Northwest and beyond. Her job has even led to making a German pen pal.
The UI Library keeps materials from the past as well as more current literature.
“Because we’re a research library, it’s our job to keep materials that peoplemight want in 100 years, in 300 years,” Smith said. “…Libraries are a huge part of that and keeping that knowledge.”
Smith writes and works on crafts in her free time.
“I’m a knotter, a spinner and a quilter, and I just genuinely believe I’m a mender,” Smith said.
In one of her recent published works, she wrote about crafts. She publishes personal essays, poetry and peer review writing as well.
Her research includes investigating the “National Endowment for the Humanities Created Equal Grant” and academic articles, including “Opening up the ivory tower: public programming at an academic library.”
Smith participated in a game of Jeopardy in 2012, receiving second place, as previously reported by The Argonaut.
“Many librarians are like this,” Smith said. “We tend to be interested in so many things that we sort of hold on to so many factors having that makes you good at trivia, which makes you good at Jeopardy.”
Emily Pearce can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @Emily _ A_ Pearce.