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Everyone needs someone to go through with their questions. Where do you go when you have caught a prize fish, longer than any you’ve ever caught, and you want to make it into a trophy? Where do you go when you are the student working late at the UNH biological sciences library, you smell smoke, and you wonder if you should close down for the night?
The person to go to with questions like these is one of the librarians at the biological sciences library, David Lane.
Lane has been working at the bio sci library for 24 years now, and he explains that the job involves much more than the usual check in and shelve that most people expect of librarians. He works on much more than that.
As part of his work with the bio sci library, Lane is responsible for going to classes to explain to students how to do research, and what research has already been done in their field of study. As an associate professor he works with another professor to teach students how to take their research ideas from vague questions to the actual proposal and research process.
But besides this work with students and research, Lane has several questions and hobbies of his own. Perhaps the most outlandish is his fascination with plants, mostly with the variety of plants that eats animals. Lane explains that he enjoys working with plants other than the carnivorous plants, but that those are his main focus.
This focus can be clearly seen by just a brief visit to his office in the bio sci library in Kendall Hall. Immediately to your left as you walk through the door sits a large glass aquarium. This aquarium, instead of providing a place for fish to swim, houses several varieties of exotic plants. The moss covering the floor of the aquarium is saturated in water, which evaporates to settle on the glass walls. Looking through these droplets you can see the plants climbing over each other, creating a miniature jungle safely contained in pots behind glass.
Looking more closely at the shelves lining the wall adjacent to this aquarium you see further evidence of Lane’s interest in exotic plants and animals. You observe book covers titled “The Atlas of Creation” and “The Secret Life of Spiders.” There are several plastic toy Venus Flycatchers and several other hungry-looking plants settled on the shelf by the window behind the desk.
Lane sits at this desk for most of the days he works in the library, working at one of the six mac computers he owns. This desk is where he works on the library work as well as preparing for events such as the university’s open house at the greenhouse, and answers the varied questions that people stop by to ask him.
Lane says that he likes his work because it allows him to focus on both his library work and his work with his plants.
“I like it because you can sort of combine them that way,” he says.
But Lane has not always planned on combining his love for plant life and a career as a librarian.
“I didn’t know you could actually work at a library,” he said.
Lane started out his undergraduate career here at UNH, where he graduated with a degree in botany. He said that he started out as one of a few marine biologists, but that didn’t work out because he got seasick.
From UNH, Lane began to “collect graduate degrees,” earning degrees in botany and library sciences. After collecting these degrees, Lane ended up back at UNH. He lives in Durham caring for his elderly mother while working at the university.
He says one of the most interesting parts of his job is the questions people ask him as a research librarian.
“You never know what someone will ask you in the next five minutes,” he said.