My first job out of library school was as a ref­er­ence librar­ian at the Calumet City Pub­lic Library in Chicago’s south sub­urbs. I was a total noob, and I look back now and laugh at how green I was. But I was lucky enough to have a great men­tor and boss who taught me a num­ber of things — cus­tomer ser­vice, patience, and how ref­er­ence worked in the real world. In fact, she’s pretty much respon­si­ble for my cus­tomer ser­vice ethic.

And that fate­ful day in what I think must have been 1993, when I dis­cov­ered the Library had a Com­puServe account that no one ever used, she said, “Sure, go ahead and play with it — see what you can find.” Yes, that fate­ful day, I found a recipe for Irish soda bread online for a patron, and I’ve been hooked ever since. She encour­aged me as I expanded my knowl­edge into email, gopher, archie, tel­net, and then the web, and she indulged my crazy ideas about how we could use all of these tools in our work.

Truly, I wouldn’t have accom­plished every­thing I have in my career if Karen Bala hadn’t been the best first boss a baby librar­ian could have. So thank you, Karen — you made a big dif­fer­ence in my life, and I wish I’d had another oppor­tu­nity to tell you that.