Page 8 - Priorities #15 2001-July

Conversation with
Peter
Reinh&ardt Susan
Falaschi
Priory’s librarians are hoping to expand the library’s size and make better use of space.
Librarians Peter Reinhardt and Susan Falaschi are at the Priory because of children—their own as well as the ones at school. Peter first met Priory when his oldest son, David, was a student here in the mid-1980’s. Susan followed her daughter Teresa in 1994.
In both cases, they started their professional lives as something else entirely. Peter earned a bachelor’s degree in Anthropology from Berkeley, then a master’s in business administration. His working life encompassed “a little bit of everything,” including a stint in the local Woodside library. That experience—and the realization that he needed the degree to advance in the field—led to a second master’s degree in library science.
Susan is a product of small, private schools—Castilleja, then a bachelor’s degree in Art History from Stanford (where Teresa just completed her sophomore year). She expects to complete her master’s program in English/creative writing in spring 2002. Her thesis project, which she said she is excited about writing, will be a fifty-page poem about the lives and roles of women in 13th -century France. Her professional experience began in the US Embassy in Ghana, where her mother was US Ambassador. Susan was her organizer and hostess for embassy events.
Some years later, back in the United States, her acquaintance with Peter led to Priory, where she is co-teacher (with Suzanne Koppett) of the Freshman Writing Lab/Research Skills class as well as part-time librarian.
The two have shepherded a period of dramatic change and growth in the library, and they are preparing for another big change they hope to see soon—an opportunity to expand the library’s size and make better use of space.
–C. Dobercich