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Library ‘Mom’ Janie Shurr retiring

Janie Shurr flips her countdown-to-retirement calendar.

Library ‘Mom’ Janie Shurr retiring

KOKOMO, Ind.—The “Mom” of the Indiana University Kokomo Library is counting down her final days as a campus employee. Behind her desk, Secretary to the Director of Library Services Janie Shurr has hung a construction paper calendar made by her daughter. Each tear-off page notes the remaining days of Shurr’s 20-year career at IU Kokomo, which ends February 9.

From 1987–1998, Shurr worked in student service positions, as an admission specialist, a secretary for the Offices of Career Services and University Division, and the campus’s representative to students who were military veterans. She’s served on the Library staff for the past eight years, as both the director’s secretary and assistant to the Government Documents Librarian.

Kirsten Leonard, who manages government documents and electronic resources for IU Kokomo, said Shurr “is always offering to help anyone in the Library, from the dirty work of shifting old government documents to the challenges of electronic documents.” Every campus in the Indiana University system benefited from Shurr’s initiative to uncover and characterize problems with catalog records loads, Leonard said.

Ready with a joke to lighten workdays, Shurr is also “the glue that holds the Library together,” according to Leonard. “She takes the time to mentor many of our student library assistants. She provides them with a sounding board as they negotiate the transition to college student.”

Library Director John Stachacz added his praise for Shurr. “Working with Janie is a great joy,” he said. “She has an upbeat and optimistic personality that brightens any room she enters. Janie is a great ambassador for IU Kokomo as she is always ready to go the extra mile to assist a student, or anyone she sees who looks like they need help.”

Shurr compares the Library to “a living room in a home” where visitors should feel welcome. “The Library is a center of campus activity. Students can spend all day here, if they choose,” she said. “I’m like the mom trying to make it comfortable for them.” Being encouraging is part of her nature. “It’s neat to have a job in which you can use your skills and your personality together.”

Shurr said she particularly enjoyed making phone calls to raise donations for IU Kokomo’s Kresge Science Initiative. That 2004–2005 effort raised private gifts to establish an endowment fund for science classroom equipment. “It was great to be able to work with other people on campus and to represent such a worthy cause.”

Shurr said she and her husband, Bob, will spend their retirement time on family, golf, “and visiting some of the missionaries that we’ve supported for many years.”