Prof. Michael Adams will retire this month after nearly 20 years of library service to the Graduate Center community. Michael was the pioneer of the Graduate Center Library’s digital presence. He designed the library’s first web site in the late 1990s and served as the library’s webmaster until 2003. More recently, he steered the Graduate Center’s virtual reference service, rallying Graduate Center librarians to become leaders in CUNY’s collaborative chat reference service. A believer in supporting autonomous research by imparting research skills (not just offering answers), Michael taught hundreds of instruction sessions and created extensive documentation about library resources and about conducting effective research. A stickler for bibliographic correctness, Michael constantly reviewed Graduate Center library journal titles making certain library e-journals display accurately so that our users would find them. (This is a bigger problem than most people realize.)

Michael’s library skills are deep and varied. He managed reference desk scheduling, built and groomed the GC library collection, and provided in-depth reference assistance for hundreds of GC faculty and students. Michael co-convened the Metropolitan New York Library Council Bibliographic Instruction Special Interest Group between 2000 and 2013, providing a forum for NYC librarians to discuss pedagogy and to develop skills. Since 1998 he has served as senior contributor to the Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature, an important resource for library collection building. Michael is a prolific contributor to film and literary bibliography. He is a film aficionado (noir) and an avid sports fan (baseball). (He was once the youngest sports editor of a daily newspaper–Clovis, NM–in the United States.)  His sense of humor is dry and sharp.

Michael holds an M.L.S. from Syracuse University and a Ph.D. in English from the University of South Carolina (Dissertation: Picaresque Elements in American Fiction). Before joining the Graduate Center Library in 1996, Michael held positions at the Florham-Madison Library at Fairleigh Dickinson University and at Wagner College in Staten Island. He moonlighted as a visiting professor at the Pratt Institute School of Library and Information Studies while employed at the Graduate Center.

Upon retirement, Michael plans to return to the American South with his wife who is also a librarian. He plans to spend his time tossing and turning over the (mis)fortunes of the Atlanta Braves and Detroit Tigers and watching as many violent crime films as his wife will allow.  The GC Library staff will miss him terribly, and we wish him well.

The GC Library will host a reception in honor of Michael’s service at 1-3 pm on August 24, 2015. Please RSVP if you plan to attend.