Isabel Planton
Ohio University alum Isabel Planton ’06, who is the public services librarian at the Lilly Library at Indiana University in Bloomington, was profiled by Fine Book Magazine’s Bright Young Librarians series.
Planton earned a B.A. in English and a Women’s Studies Certificate from the College of Arts & Sciences at Ohio University.
How did you get started in rare books?
When I started college at Ohio University, I had not even decided on a major. I was really quite adrift. Once I decided to get an English degree, I had to figure out what I would ultimately do for work. I went to one of those sessions for English majors titled something like “What do I do with this English degree?” and one of the options presented was librarianship. Until that moment, I had never considered librarianship as a career. Something clicked that day and it seemed like the right path for me. I talked to my advisor who put me in touch with two librarians at the Ohio University library. I met with both of them and decided to do an internship with Judy Connick who worked in Public Services at the Mahn Center for Archives and Special Collections at OU. She was my first mentor and I credit her for launching me on this career path. After my internship, I stayed on as a student employee working with Judy for another year. During that time, I processed collections, worked through the backlog, and paged materials in a book vault that would plunge into darkness every fifteen minutes if I didn’t remember to flick the light switch. I couldn’t believe a place so strange and wonderful really existed and that I could one day work somewhere similar. Judy was passionate about working with rare books and special collections and it was infectious. She encouraged me to get my MLS and got me interested in the idea of eventually attending Rare Book School.
Read more in the Bright Young Librarian interview.
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