Not necessarily the kind of person one would expect to be an archivist -- and love it.

Photo by David Kilper

University Archivist Carole A. Prietto is playing a key role in helping the University prepare for its sesquicentennial celebration in 2003-04. "Carole has a strong sense of the importance of her responsibility to preserve the University's history," says Anne Posega, head of Special Collections at Olin Library.

"It's a bit solitary," admits Prietto, who has served as University archivist for the past 12 years. "But it also can be people-intensive. There certainly is a public-service aspect to it. I like working one-on-one with researchers.

"The University Archives has about 700 users a year," she continues. "In any kind of special collections or archives environment, your stacks are not open to the public. It's not like you can simply point the users to the stacks and let them browse. There's a lot of interaction with people in terms of what they need, where they might find it, showing them how to use the collection guides. On the whole, it's just the right amount of working with people and working by myself."

"Carole has a strong sense of the importance of her responsibility to preserve the University's history," says Anne Posega, head of Special Collections at Olin Library. "And she is always very concerned that the people who are using the archives get what they need for their research. She is very service-minded."

Prietto is not a librarian by training; she's a historian. In fact, her "second hat" is subject librarian for the Department of Classics in Arts & Sciences. She selects the books that go into the library for classical studies.

History is her passion. It's what she reads for fun.

Prietto with the Stanley Cup during a 1997 visit to Toronto's Hockey Hall of Fame.

"I've always liked history," she says. "I had a wonderful world history teacher in ninth grade who turned me on to ancient Greek and Roman history, and all through school I just kept reading about it. When I got to college, I took every ancient and medieval history course I could."

A Los Angeles native, Prietto earned bachelor's and master's degrees in history at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the University of California, Los Angeles, respectively.

"When I began graduate school at UCLA," Prietto says, "the goal at the time was to get a Ph.D. and teach. My student job introduced me to the library world, which I found out that I really liked."

As a graduate student, Prietto worked in the library archives at UCLA. After she finished her course work in 1986, the university hired her full-time as the archives assistant. In 1989, she attended the Western Archives Institute, an intensive introduction to the profession and to archival practice.

"I met a lot of professional and burgeoning archivists, and that gave me the push I needed to test the job market," Prietto says. "I decided this was what I was really meant to do. Washington University was my first job interview, and, by golly, they hired me!"

A passion for music

Not long after moving to St. Louis, Prietto began scouting for an activity where she could indulge in her second passion -- music. A colleague told her about St. Louis Harmony Chorus, a women's barbershop-style a cappella group. After attending her first rehearsal, Prietto was hooked.

The group is part of Sweet Adelines International, the largest singing organization in the world for women. Prietto sings lead, the melody part in barbershop harmony. She also is a certified chorus director in Sweet Adelines, has produced a compact disc, and arranges music in barbershop style.

"We sing a lot of popular music," Prietto says. "You think of barbershop harmony as old songs from the 19th century, but in fact almost any kind of music can be made barbershop. We sing a Saturday Night Fever medley! We've performed at the Sheldon Concert Hall and Fair St. Louis. We've done St. Louis Cardinals baseball, where we sang the national anthem."

St. Louis Harmony Chorus participates in the annual Sweet Adelines music compe-tition.

"St. Louis Harmony has won nine regional championships in Sweet Adelines International," Prietto says proudly. "Winning at the regional level qualifies you for the international convention, which is basically the world championships of women's barbershop harmony. St. Louis Harmony is consistently in the top 20 worldwide, so it's a very, very good group. Very progressive, very forward-looking."

Planning the future

Carole A. Prietto University title: University archivist Number of years at the University: 12 Academic degrees: B.A. in history, University of California, Santa Barbara; M.A. in history, University of California, Los Angeles Personal interests/hobbies: Reading, Web page design, music (member of St. Louis Harmony Chorus and Sweet Adelines International). Also an avid fan of St. Louis sports teams.

University Archives collects and maintains the University's permanent historical record, from 1853 to the present day, as well as a St. Louis history collection. The collection includes manuscripts, print, sound recordings, film, video, artifacts and microfilm. In 1998, Prietto presided over the archives' move from cramped space in Olin Library to larger, climate-controlled facilities in the West Campus Library.

One of the major tasks Prietto faces over the next two years is helping the University prepare for its sesquicentennial celebration in 2003-04. Prietto sits on the Sesquicentennial Commission, a group University community members leading the planning of the observance of the University's 150th anniversary.

"One of the goals for the sesquicentennial is to highlight the University's past, and as the keeper of the University's past, I'm working with many people on many things, including historical exhibits and a Web site," Prietto says.

"Carole is such a wonderful treasure for the University, especially as we begin to plan for our 150th anniversary," says Steve Givens, assistant to the chancellor and on-campus coordinator of the sesquicentennial celebration. "In fact, sometimes it's tempting to think of her as 'being' the University Archives instead of being the person who manages them. She has such a terrific sense of the importance of history and institutional memory, and she is a constant reminder of how essential it is to save things for future generations."

Prietto's biggest sesquicentennial project is a special pictorial history book commissioned by the University. She has been working closely with author Candace O'Connor, who says she is enjoying the partnership.

"Working with Carole is a delight," O'Connor says. "She knows and loves the history of the University, and she is also a born detective, answering tough research questions with endless skill and enthusiasm."

"The fun part about working with Carole on the sesquicentennial materials is how excited she gets about discovering new items or new photos," says Mary Ellen Benson, assistant vice chancellor and executive director of publications, who heads the sesquicentennial Web site and book subcommittees. "She's working extremely well with Candace O'Connor on tracking down leads and seeing what they can turn up."

Prietto says, "This is going to be a heavily illustrated book, and it's going to call upon all of the photographic resources at University Archives. I'm learning a lot from it. There are many interesting human stories that will be told for the first time with this book."

In addition to her sesquicentennial preparations, Prietto continues to set important goals for herself.

"Professionally, I'm looking into getting my master's degree in library science because in the academic library world it is such an important credential," she says. "In terms of future goals for the archives, I think I'd like to do more to make the collection available over the Internet. We have such great photographic collections that I would like to expand access to them as much as I can."