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Name: Ingrid Giden Location: Holland Circulation
larger version) |
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Officially, Ingrid Giden joined the Libraries' permanent staff in Holland Circulation
on Feb. 1, 2000. She was, however, already a familiar face to patrons as she had
worked as a temporary employee in the Circ Dept on and off since 1991. Many of us
are also familiar with her, by name at least, due to a medical ordeal she underwent
in 1998. It actually had begun several years earlier, in 1993, when she was struck
with a diabetic neuropathy that affected her legs. After a year and a half spent
in a wheelchair, she began to learn to walk again and was able to return to college
and to work. However, she was on crutches for her final year of school. She met
that challenge successfully, but was soon faced with another, more difficult one
when in 1998 her kidneys stopped functioning. This condition required her to undergo
dialysis for 4 months while she waited for a transplant. Then, at last, in August of
1998, she received a kidney and pancreas transplant. Her health is now greatly
improved and, additionally, she is no longer diabetic. Ingrid divides her days at the Holland/New Library between working in Circulation during the mornings and at Media Materials and Reserves during the afternoons. Before signing on with the Libraries she spent 4 summers on the grounds crew for WSU Married Student Housing and spent a year helping take care of the test animals in Hulbert Hall. Despite her long association with Pullman, Ingrid spent much of her childhood in Sweden where her father was going to school. "Most of my family is Scandinavian," she explains, "and many are living there." While she herself was living there she learned Swedish and took her first years of schooling. Ingrid's more immediate family includes her parents (her mother, Shirley, works in Interlibrary Loan), an older brother, Nels, living in Oregon and a younger sister, Emma, who has also worked for the Libraries and is currently living in Sweden. Also part of the family, since "we almost always have a dog", is a vizsla (Hungarian hunting dog) named Frigga. In her free time Ingrid enjoys painting explaining, "When I was sick I started painting as therapy" and she loves to read, including historical fiction and animal behavior among her favorite subjects. Asked about living on the Palouse, Ingrid remarks "I really like it…With all the hills you don't just have a flat landscape." And then adds, "but there's a pronounced lack of trees." She plans to stay in the area for the near future, in part because she likes being in a university town where there are always events going on. She also likes working for the Libraries because, she notes, she gets along well with all of her co-workers and, quite simply, "I like being near books all the time." -Judith Ashworth |
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