Managing research information
Nov 18, 2009 9:38 AM, By Rebekah Ray, Delta Branch Research and Extension Center
Mississippi State University’s Delta Research and Extension Center in Stoneville, Miss., includes 4,100 acres, almost a hundred employees and a 30,000-volume library, the latter of which is directed by Rhonda Watson.
“We are fortunate to have a library at DREC to aid our researchers and scientists in their research. This is State’s only off-campus research facility equipped with a professional library, and our researchers appreciate what it provides,” Watson said.
The library at DREC began evolving over forty years ago with journals and books dumped in an empty room. Researchers at both DREC and at the nearby USDA’s Agricultural Research Services had been discarding duplicate or complimentary copies of their printed resources. These form the basis of today’s library, which is now located on the second floor of DREC’s original building.
In 1966, the DREC administration employed professional librarian Julia Pugh to catalog and organize the disarrayed materials. She stayed for six years, and was followed by the duo of librarian Charlotte Pierce and librarian assistant Mary Horton. Pierce handled the ordering and cataloging of books and periodicals while Horton managed the serials. Together, they catalogued DREC’s library according to American Library Association standards.
When Watson became DREC’s librarian in 1992, the library was extremely busy.
“When I first started here, a great deal of traffic came through but because of the Internet, researchers and others at Stoneville can obtain most of what they need at their desks. Now, we serve as a repository for storing information locating those hard-to-find references and using interlibrary loans,” Watson said.
Becoming a librarian had not been Watson’s first career choice, but her present work at DREC is a natural fit for the Alabama native. After graduating from Mississippi University for Women, she moved to Greenville, Miss., and taught fifth grade. Desiring a career change after four years, she did some soul searching and a little research, and decided to go into library science. Nearby Delta State University offered such a program.
In the summer of 1977, Watson began working toward a master’s degree in library science at Delta State. She took full loads that summer, fall, spring and half the next summer. Upon receiving her degree, she walked into a librarian’s position in the Greenville Public School system where she worked for another 11 years.
After those years in the public school system, she wanted a change. A friend had seen an advertisement for a librarian at DREC that had run only once in the Greenville newspaper. Watson applied for it and was hired.
