She’s barely five feet tall, but during her 40 years at Texas State University, Joan Heath has built a reputation that stands tall and has elevated the University Libraries’ status to the highest levels among elite universities. As Associate Vice President and University Librarian, Heath has overseen tremendous growth, groundbreaking technology advances and awesome achievements in libraries.
As she retires at the end of August, Heath leaves behind a proud legacy and ends a journey that was cultivated through her extraordinary vision, her passion for libraries and her drive for excellence.
She fostered a love of libraries at an early age. Growing up in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, Michigan, Heath fondly remembers routine Friday night sojourns to the local public library with her father and three siblings. In the summers, she spent the warm afternoons swimming in the city park pool and recalls throwing on her flip flops and towel and hurrying out to the visiting bookmobile (a mini mobile library) in search of literary treasures when it made its regular stop in the park. Unbeknownst to her at the time, these occasions were planting a seed that would impact the trajectory of her life and career.
As a young adult, she completed her core college coursework at the University of Michigan at Dearborn, but she hadn’t yet identified her career path.
“I remember filling out this lengthy survey that was supposed to reveal the occupations that best suited me and what program of study to pursue. The advisor reviewed my results and told me ‘Your interests haven’t crystalized yet,’” Heath said with her distinctive chuckle.
With no real direction determined, she decided to drop out of school until she had a more defined plan. She began working at the local hospital ER doing patient intake surveys.
“Among the questions I would ask the patients was one related to employment,” Heath recalled. “One of the patients I was interviewing said she was a librarian and, I don’t know why but, I just started talking to her about what that was like. That conversation must have triggered something because soon after that, I hopped on a bus to Ann Arbor with no appointment, spoke to an advisor at UM [University of Michigan Ann Arbor] and decided that I was going to be a librarian.”
She enrolled as a journalism major, but knew that pursuit of a graduate degree in library science would immediately follow completion of her undergraduate studies. While at UM, she worked as a student worker in the Mathematics Library. She earned her MA in Library Science and landed her first professional librarian job 1,200 miles away at Texas A&M University.
In 1981, Heath was hired by Southwest Texas State University (now Texas State) to be the acquisitions librarian. Six years later, she applied to replace the retiring library director. After an extensive search Heath was chosen to lead the library, a position which reported to Director of Learning Resources, Dr. Bill Mears. Mears saw leadership qualities in Heath that he believed made her the right fit for the job.
“I remember Joan just had an ability to work well with others and get the job done in an expeditious manner and that always impressed me,” Mears said. “She was also able to see the humor in a lot of different situations and her little chuckle kept things light, but she was always able to keep things moving forward.”
Heath’s determination and her drive for progress are evident in the achievements she has overseen in her time at Texas State.
She shepherded the completion of extraordinary library facilities. Under her watch, the university built its first dedicated library building on the San Marcos campus, the grandiose Albert B. Alkek Library, a 300,000-square-foot imposing structure that is among the finest academic libraries in the country partly due to recent renovations directed by Heath. She oversaw planning and construction of the Round Rock Campus Library in the Avery Building and the state-of-the-art Archives and Research Center, a custom-designed, climate-controlled preservation library.
The technology innovations that Heath ushered into the libraries were transformational. The move into the Alkek building in 1990 brought with it the first online catalog, but library databases were still housed on disks that had to be loaded onto computer workstations. The following decades brought previously unimaginable technology innovations and today, the library offers a huge catalog of eResources, numerous online services and information systems, cutting-edge digitization services, extensive resource repositories, and innovation centers that give students, faculty and staff the ability to explore new and emerging technologies.
Mears has been impressed by the metamorphosis he has seen at the Alkek Library under Heath’s watch.
“I’ve stopped by the library several times since my retirement,” he said. “And every time, I have seen significant steps forward. Joan really took over the leadership and drove the library forward in new and different directions from the traditional library. I think she has been a magnificent leader.”
Another key accomplishment was the establishment and continued growth and expansion of The Wittliff Collections. Bill and Sally Wittliff founded the Southwestern Writers Collection in 1986 and since that time, The Wittliff Collections has expanded to include the Southwestern & Mexican Photography Collection, the Lonesome Dove Collection and the Texas Music Collection. These valuable collections have continued to grow and bring great prestige to the library and the university as a whole.
Steve Davis, literary curator for The Wittliff Collections has worked with Heath for more than 26 years and he describes her as a “practical visionary.”
“She has that rare combination of qualities in that she can look to the future and dream big things, and yet she also excels at mastering the strategies and myriad details required to bring such vision to reality,” Davis said. “And she does all of this while retaining her humanistic compassion and empathy for others.”
One of the biggest dreams Heath had for University Libraries was achieved last fall with the invitation to join the prestigious Association of Research Libraries. Following an intense review process, Texas State’s University Libraries became just the 125th member of this organization achieving the pinnacle of distinction among research libraries.
“I truly didn’t think we would become an ARL Library under my watch,” Heath said. “It’s such a monumental achievement in the library world and I had a vision for us to achieve it, but I was truly just trying to put us in position so that the next library director could get us there.”
But the invitation did come under her watch rounding out an enviable list of achievements. And she delights in crediting all of the dedicated employees that worked so hard to make it possible as she lights up when telling the stories of the many initiatives that her staff developed and accomplished.
“In my time working with Joan, I got a glimpse of her that most of the people on the staff don’t ever see,” Davis said. “I saw a Joan Heath who put the well-being of her staff above all else, a Joan who was a tough and dogged fighter for her employees. She never shrank in the face of adversity.”
Fortunately for Texas State University and the people who have worked with her over the last 40 years, that dogged fighter has served them well. Her interests did crystalize and the young girl in flip flops at the bookmobile in the Dearborn city park, found her footing and the drive that has kept University Libraries moving forward over the past 40 years.
“What I know is how fortunate we have all been to have a leader of Joan’s caliber,” Davis said. “One of the most gratifying parts of my job at The Wittliff is that I get to meet so many distinguished, successful creative artists who are leaders in their field. I count Joan Heath among them. It has truly been an honor to serve alongside her and to benefit from her wisdom and leadership.”
Reflecting on the past 40 years, Heath expresses pride in the accomplishments and gratitude to the people who made them possible.
“I think I’ve got the best story out there!”
This article was contributed by Debbie Pitts, University Libraries Marketing and Communications Coordinator.