How did I come to be both an artist and a librarian? From the start, I never wanted to support myself with my art. Way back then my art was private. In order for the work to be true, it was best protected from the whims of the market. And since I had to work, I might as well contribute to the common weal, and do nothing that could harm the social fabric. After several years of experimenting with social work, sales, bookkeeping, cocktail waitressing, organizing Camp Fire Girls, census-taking, and other sundry occupations, it was finally librarianship that demanded the most of my top-notch liberal arts education and my desire to do good in a world so complex that it was often impossible to know what was good from what was not.