Librarian checks out of Mat-Su College

She's been instrumental in helping shape the knowledge of thousands of students, has seen the library grow from a few thousand books in a relatively small room to a spacious, two-floor facility with worldwide access at users' fingertips, and now, she said, it's time to return to what she loves.

Leza Madsen has been the librarian at Mat-Su College since 1976, the year it moved from a night school at Palmer High School to its present

location off Trunk Road. She was one of only five full-time faculty on staff at the college at the time, and her library was housed in what is now the campus cafeteria.

"It was just a room with books in it," Madsen said recently.

In the years hence, she has seen the direction of her field change significantly, along with the direction and relationship of Mat-Su College and the community. And through that time her staff and position have expanded significantly as well. In fact, Madsen said, that's one of the best things about her time at the college.

"I got a chance to build a

library from scratch," Madsen said, "to build a collection, to build a staff and then build a brand new building."

And that very hands-on experience is something she said she likely wouldn't have received in a larger library.

Along with those changes, Madsen said, has come a relationship with libraries around the world that gives Mat-Su College students access to texts housed in some of the world's foremost universities.

"Now a student at Mat-Su College can look and see what's in a library, even at Oxford College, and borrow [from there]," Madsen said. "A student today doesn't

really have to go to a college with a huge library to have the same benefits."

Such library loans are often performed through an interlibrary cooperation project Mat-Su participates in. Texts from Mat-Su College, she said, have been sent to other nations such as Japan and England through the project.

Another change Madsen has seen has been the rise in digitally-available information. The college has access to 220 full-text databases to journals and periodicals such as the New York Times -- journals the college wouldn't be able to house -- or afford -- in paper format.

"That's something that was unheard of 20 years ago," Madsen said. "It's great -- for anybody that loves information, it's a really big jump to have all that available in just a matter of minutes. The downside is, it's almost overwhelming for students who have not used libraries."

Madsen and her staff provide instructional courses to help them get acquainted with what's available to them. That's part of the job she loves -- and part of the reason she's leaving the college she has helped raise.

Madsen holds an anthropology degree and a masters in library science -- the library degree came some years after her studies in anthropology, and after Madsen found that getting ahead in anthropology meant narrowing her focus.

"As much as I love anthropology, I couldn't see focusing on one culture and just one aspect of it," Madsen said. "One of the attractions about being a librarian is that I like to know a little bit about a lot of things."

And that realization led her to go back to school and reacquaint herself with the inner workings of the Dewey Decimal System. Now it's what's leading her to a position as a reference and instructional librarian at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Wash., where she starts in less than a month -- a little lower on the totem pole.

"Instead of being the boss, now I get to focus on the things that I love the most -- teaching and reference," Madsen said.

Madsen said she's going to miss Mat-Su College -- a place she said has retained its community focus despite more than quadrupling its number of students.

"We had 400 students that first year -- now we have more like 1,800, and yet we've retained that personal touch in spite of the fact that it's growing," Madsen said.

Madsen recalled that the college continued to grow and change its focus throughout the years, starting out with classes in vo-tech fields, mostly offered at night. Today, students can take general courses such as English and algebra throughout the day. It hung on through difficult times, Madsen said, and continues to move forward despite an ever-changing clientele.

"During the economic downturns we had [in the '80s] we stagnated when we should have grown," Madsen said. "The biggest challenges are economic … growth is always going to be a big challenge because you need to keep up with and meet the new demands."

Madsen said although the college has completed several five- and 10-year plans, by the time the plan is complete, the scope of the college and the surrounding community has changed enough to make the plans obsolete. But that's part of the beauty of living here, she said.

"I think that's what makes it such a fun place to live," Madsen said. "I've always felt like I've participated in the political procedure … I think here, anybody that wants to participate is encouraged to do so."

Madsen said she's confident she and her partner Fred James will find numerous ways to get involved in the Bellingham community -- Madsen said James, a frequent author of letters to the editor in papers throughout Southcentral Alaska, is looking forward to surveying the political scene in Bellingham already. But the couple hopes to keep in contact with their Alaskan friends as well -- and may be able to greet them as they travel into Washington. Bellingham, Madsen pointed out, also serves as the terminus for the Alaska ferry system.

"We're hoping that we'll be right on the road and we'll get to see a lot of people," Madsen said.