When Walter Zimmerman walks out the doors of Weldon Library for the last time as a librarian, he will take a lot of institutional history with him.
Zimmerman has been a fixture at Weldon for nearly 40 years and on Friday, Dec. 11 he will deliver his last lecture from noon to 1 p.m. in North Campus Building, Room 113. A retirement reception was held on Monday at Michael’s Garden.
Western News
Senior Librarian Walter Zimmerman retires at the end of December after nearly 40 years at Western.
Although he is retiring on Dec. 31 from his career at The University of Western Ontario, he leaves as a Librarian Emeritus. He will have a lifetime access to Western Libraries’ online databases, a favourite pastime that earned him the nickname ‘Mr. Google.’
“I was destined to become a librarian before I was born,” says Zimmerman, who grew up in Brookline, Mass. (near Boston).
Initially, Zimmerman and his wife moved to London, Ont. so he could begin a master’s program in economics at Western. But a fateful meeting with a neighbour in Bayfield Hall residence who was studying Library and Information Sciences, combined with growing dissatisfaction with his program, helped Zimmerman switch to what would become a lifelong passion and career.
He began working in 1971 at the library in Lawson Hall and moved to Weldon Library when it opened in 1972.
After 38 years, he leaves as a subject librarian for Classical Studies and Philosophy, the Writing, Rhetoric and Professional Communications Program, and the Electronic Services Librarian. Ask him any question on just about any topic and he is likely to refer you to book title and publication date without pause, or help to navigate effortlessly through an online database dedicated to the subject.
“I think my brain has been wired the right way to be a librarian,” he says.
Among his many longstanding commitments, Zimmerman has worked with History professor Craig Simpson for more than 30 years teaching students how to maximize primary and online reference materials for research on the U.S. Civil War.
He became known in the community as an early adopter of the search engine Google and Google Scholar, and helped Teaching Support Centre Director Debra Dawson make Western the first Canadian university to implement Turnitin.com to spot plagiarism.
But of all the people he has encountered across the research desk, one student in particular stands out as a highlight of his career.
In 2001, Zimmerman was paired up with first-year student Alexandra Papaiconomou. Throughout her undergraduate and master’s studies, Zimmerman helped Papaiconomou, who is blind, locate library resources and made copies of the materials so she could scan them into special software on her computer.
Over the years the two became friends and now that Papaiconomou is back at Western for a law degree, Zimmerman hopes to offer her support even after his retirement.
“I get my satisfaction from helping other people succeed,” he says. “She’ll be a great lawyer. I feel so blessed to have the chance to help her.”
So what is next for Mr. Google? Zimmerman plans to travel with his wife and spend time with family, including his young grandchildren. He hopes to volunteer, cultivate his photography and catch up on reading.
“Thirty-eight years is a pretty good run,” he says. “People will manage without me.”
As a seemingly permanent fixture at Weldon, Zimmerman promises to drop by every now and then to visit friends and co-workers.
“I can’t think of another job I would have wanted to have in the last almost 40 years. If I had to do it all over again, I would be a librarian.”