Volunteer Story: Carmen King

Carmen King has volunteered over 900 hours in Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site’s library.

NPS / Julie Northrip

Quite often park libraries are overlooked and neglected. Very few parks have dedicated librarians or staff are assigned library work as collateral duty. Carmen King has volunteered over 900 hours in Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site’s library. She was honored with the 2020 National Park Service Regions 3, 4 and 5 (Midwest) Hartzog Enduring Service award.

When Carmen arrived, the park library was not easily accessible to staff or others who wanted to use the library. Today, the site has a cataloged, well-organized, up-to-date library collection of over 8,500 items that is vastly more usable. Carmen's work was instrumental in ensuring that the site’s library records are in a format that meets the standards of the library profession. The site’s library records are now safe for posterity and are compatible with any library catalog system in the future.

Carmen shared a little information about her time volunteering for the park and her interest in future volunteer opportunities.

How long have you been volunteering at the Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site library?

It’s been almost 5 years now. I volunteer every other month for a few days each week as I split my time between Missouri and Ohio.

What were you doing before this?

I am a retired librarian. I worked for 28 years as a Fine Arts and Humanities Librarian at Kenyon College in Ohio.

What have been some of the most interesting things that you have discovered while volunteering?

There have been some exciting finds in looking through the rare books, especially the Civil War soldiers’ books. I’ve found personal narratives of soldiers during the war that I’ve not run across before in other libraries. We also have interesting books on women’s history. Several books in the collection are unique and didn’t have records in the Library of Congress. We have a book written by a woman from Ireland on the horsemanship of Grant and we are the only library in the United States to have a copy.

How do you see your role here at the park?

I want to make sure the books are accessible so park staff can find the books they need when developing park programming, doing research, and making management decisions. All the books need to be properly cataloged and entered into the online catalog so they can be easily found through a search. I want to do whatever I can to assist those using the library in finding the resources they need.

What goals do you have now for the library?

I want to focus more attention on the books in our special John Y. Simon collection. I also need to identify the fragile material in our library collection that need extra archival protection. I would like to see others besides staff use our library for research and study. We will be working with college students this spring on a research project that will include a good deal of time spent in our park library.

What other parks have you volunteered at?

Ste. Geneviève National Historical Park is a new park just an hour from here. I cataloged their books and got their library started. A few years ago, I spent two weeks at Arkansas Post cataloguing their entire collection and making it accessible for rangers to do research. I love to travel, and I love our National Park System. I’d like to go to any park that needs assistance with their library because I find this work fun! I have a camper and can travel and camp near the park. 😊

Learn more about volunteering with Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site and the National Park Service. Discover other volunteer stories from Midwest national parks.