Who are the People in Your State Library Resource Center

Meet Sarah Kuperman!
Selection Librarian
Collection Management Department
Enoch Pratt Free Library/State Library Resource Center

What do you do?
I select materials for the State Library Resource Center and for Pratt Library too. I select both fiction and non fiction print materials and I work with some database selection and our statewide ebooks consortium as well.

How did you get here?
After I graduated from college, I took a job as an assistant in the Reference Department of a small public library. The librarians I met there were a wonderful supportive encouraging and fun bunch of people. Their encouragement led to my going off to library school in Chicago, then jobs in Boston, and NYC before I settled in Baltimore.

What’s your favorite thing about your job?
I get to review a wide range of materials in my job. It's very interesting to me to see the trends in publishing as ideas are brought forth, reviewed, reworked and developed. As a SLRC selector I am looking for a wide range of high level materials, for Pratt Library I want to get the popular materials that suit the branch needs. In my job, I get to look at everything.

What’s a book that you didn’t expect to like – but did?
Emily Post by Laura Claridge. How could a biography about a person who is well behaved be interesting? But Claridge uses Emily's life to describe a social history of America beginning just post Civil War to WWII. Emily Post had a close connection with Baltimore, which surprised me. She wrote the first edition of her book on Etiquette in 1922, but she was always revising and updating her book. In the WWII era, the military bought and distributed thousands of copies of the 1945 edition in order to help soldiers feel comfortable in unfamiliar situations. Emily was a strong supporter of young people and the changes they made in social behavior. Her goal was not to lay down rules and regs, but to provide guidelines to help people feel comfortable in social settings. Her underlying rule was that one should never discomfort another person.

What is your favorite SLRC program, service, or training?
I am a fan of the Fiction Department's "What do you recommend ..?" They always give an interesting set of presentations.

What do you do when you’re not reading?
I am very involved with my wonderful family.