Meet the Staff is a Q&A series on Out of the Stacks that highlights the Archives and Information Services staff of the Texas State Library and Archives Commission.
In 50 words or less, describe what you do.
I dabble in a little bit of everything that the Information Services division within ARIS has to offer. I perform stacks maintenance activities, provide patron assistance in all three of our public reading rooms, collect statistics, process incoming items, write procedures, rehouse and inventory archival items and more!
Why did you choose your profession?
As an undergraduate at the University of Texas, I worked at the now defunct Audio Visual Library. It was a great job and I loved it, but I thought I had more pressing passions. After graduating college, I moved to Washington D.C. to muck it up in politics and realized within 6 months that policy work was not for me. Falling back on my undergraduate degree, history, I crawled back to my hometown of Corpus Christi, Texas and became a high school teacher. I did this for two years. All the while eying the school librarians. Pestering them with questions. Flickers of my past life as a library employee keeping me up at night. I realized after trying my hand at other things, libraries are the place for me. I love research, patrons, collections, organization, access, preservation, digitization, older forms of media, co-workers. I like arriving to a place everyday with the goal of making it easier for a person off the street to access the wonders of the world.
What is your favorite document, photo, or artifact in TSLAC’s collection?
The items in our collection that I have the most fun perusing would have to be the City Directories. My family arrived in East Texas from Baton Rouge in the 1840s. The first appearance of my Great-Grandfather and namesake Anthony Montana Glass occurs in the Houston City Directory for 1882. He is listed as a County Cattle Inspector:
Skipping to 1912, we find my great, great-grandfather and great uncle as neighbors on historic Hardy Street.
In a cruel bit of fate, the Texas and New Orleans Railroad company which my great uncle is listed as being a towerman for, would be responsible for my Great Great Grandpa’s death.
Using one of our subscription newspaper databases, I can read all about the grisly scene when an iron rod from a T. & N. O. locomotive nearly decapitated my namesake!
When you’re not busy, what do you like to do for fun?
I watch an incredible amount of movies. I am never without a book. I ride my bicycle everywhere. I like exploring, hiking, eating. My ideal weekend would be sweating it out in the Chisos Mountains with friends enjoying cold drinks and eating meat and potatoes.