Meet Eleanore Wellwood, Cataloging and Acquisitions Assistant at UBC Library

Nearing retirement, Eleanore Wellwood is in an interesting position when it comes to reflecting on her time at UBC, especially since that time spans more than fifty years.

Coming on board initially as a student assistant in 1966, then again in the late 1980s, Eleanore tried out a few different career paths before falling into library work. “All my academic career had been heading into international relations until I realized what it was like to be a diplomat, and I knew that wasn’t for me,” she recalls. “I wanted to do something more practical. So when I came back to UBC, it was in nutrition and food science, until I realized that in order to do anything with that, you need to go through to the PhD level.”

Instead, the Library became a welcome alternative and a comfortable fit. “I come from an academic family. Books have always been part of my life, so it wasn’t a big leap.” Starting in the 1990s until 2007, Eleanore worked as a library assistant at Interlibrary Loans and Woodward Library, before moving to Crane Library in Brock Hall, which provides resources for UBC students, faculty and staff who are blind, visually impaired, or have print disabilities.

“When I was at Crane—which I loved as well—I’d reached the point where I was close enough to retirement that I thought I would either stay there until I retired or I would make a change in my life,” she says. “All the retirement books keep saying that the worst thing about retiring is you don’t know what to do with yourself, or you’re not willing to try something new. So I thought it was now or never.”

When the position of Cataloging and Acquisitions Assistant came up at X̱wi7x̱wa Library, she decided to make a move once again. It was a huge learning curve, she remembers. “I’m from Vancouver but not Indigenous, so everything I’m learning is piling on as more and more learning.”

In her day-to-day work, she is involved in record enhancing, investigating, teaching and supervising graduate academic assistants. “We have the privilege and pleasure of enhancing the standard records so that they better reflect Indigenous approaches to knowledge.”

Now, after nearly a decade at X̱wi7x̱wa Library, Eleanore is faced with a new dilemma. “My problem is that I really love my job, so it’s hard to say that I am retiring,” she says. “It’s never the same, it’s always interesting.”

She recalls one project in particular that began shortly after she arrived at X̱wi7x̱wa, which put her cataloguing skills to the test. “When the library changed from DRA to Voyager, all our subject headings became ‘unsearchable’,” she says. “In terms of the project, it meant retyping every subject heading. But it also gave us the opportunity to examine them.” Luckily, she didn’t have to do most of the retyping, but got to dive into the examining.

When asked what has surprised her the most about UBC Library, she laughs. “When working for the library comes upon you gradually, nothing is surprising.”

Learn more about the programs and collections at X̱wi7x̱wa Library.

Eleanore Wellwood is one of UBC Library’s 2018 Employee Recognition Award winners, receiving the Unsung Hero Award for her outstanding work. Read more about the awards and this year’s recipients.