Chief Librarian Set to Start From Scratch at CSUCI

Paul Adalian may have stumbled onto a book lover’s dream job.

As the newly appointed chief librarian at Cal State Channel Islands, he will draw up plans to occupy a $50-million library and media center set for construction on the Camarillo campus.

And he’ll start work June 3 to a growing wave of community support for the new facility, including a $1-million gift earlier this month to develop and maintain the archives at the two-story, glass-and-steel structure when it opens in 2005.

But it’s not like he’ll get to put up his feet until then.

With the university set to open this fall, Adalian will have his hands full running an existing library at the fledgling campus. He will have to find ways to squeeze more resources out of the cramped facility tucked in the shadow of the historic bell tower building at the former Camarillo State Hospital complex.

“You can wait years to do great things, or you can start doing great things right away,” said Adalian, 57, who will leave his post as assistant dean for information and instructional services at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

“I never aspired to be a library director; I just thought this was a great opportunity,” Adalian said. “And I think the time to do things is now.” Adalian is a long way from the Los Angeles Public Library branch at 109th Street and Normandie Avenue, where he spent much of his childhood satisfying a lively curiosity.

He grew up nearby, in an area now considered Watts. He loved to watch movies at the local theater and then run to the library to find out how far Hollywood had stretched the facts.

After graduating from Inglewood High School, Adalian earned a bachelor’s degree in history from Cal State Stanislaus and a master’s in the same subject from Loyola University in Los Angeles.

He went on to earn a master’s degree in library science from Syracuse University in 1971 and took a job at a small college in eastern Nebraska, where he worked with the faculty and taught classes in library research.

He moved to the library at San Francisco State University before landing at the San Luis Obispo campus in 1978.

Adalian wasn’t looking to leave that post. He had made a name for himself for his knowledge of Web-enabled databases and digital libraries. And he was skilled at drawing thousands of dollars in grants to the campus library, including a Library of California award to help smaller public and school libraries create internal Web pages.

He also was having fun at his job, known for the impromptu boccie ball games he organized on the library carpet and his famed Library Olympics, where library personnel raced book trucks through a slalom course.

“We’re going to have to buy another boccie ball set, because he’s taking his set with him,” said Hiram Davis, dean of library services at Cal Poly.

“Paul has been very much an integral part not only of the library at Cal Poly but also the university as a whole,” Davis said. “He has done a tremendous job of helping us move into the 21st century.”

Channel Islands President Richard Rush said testimonials like those convinced him that Adalian was the right person for the Camarillo job.

“He is excellent,” Rush said. “He comes to me highly recommended, by people whose opinions I respect, for his knowledge of libraries and his technical expertise.”

Adalian plans to immediately put his experience to good use.

Although the new facility will have plenty of books and reference materials, he doesn’t plan to build a traditional library. He plans to lean heavily on electronic databases, digital library collections and other high-tech resources.

The goal is not only to create a library bursting with information but also to teach students and faculty how to find, evaluate and apply the information from the ever-growing number of sources now available at the click of a computer mouse.

“I thought it would be kind of fun to start a brand-new library,” said Adalian, who along with his wife, Rosemary, plans to buy one of the condominiums the university is building behind the campus for faculty housing.

“This is really a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, to start something like this from scratch.”