Featured SENYLRC Staff Member: Anna Marie Garvey

Anna Marie Garvey: nee Conter. Anna’s current title is Program Assistant. She will be the first person you speak with when calling and the first person to greet you when visiting Southeastern. Anna was born in a little town in the Italian Alps, called Livo. Anna along with her Mom and four siblings came to the United States on the Andrea Doria in April 1956. On July 25, 1956 the Andréa Doria was struck by the Stockholm and sunk near Nantucket, Massachusetts. “My family and I were scheduled to sail on July 17, but my Mom got a call that there was a stateroom available for the April 11, 1956 sailing. A guardian angel must have been watching over my Mom.” Just imagine a sea voyage with five children with the oldest being 14 and the youngest 6. Anna went to the Annunciation Grammar School and All Saints Commercial High School in Brooklyn. After graduation Anna went to work for Con Edison. While working at Con Edison she met her husband, Bob. They were married in 1969 and have two sons. Anna always wondered if her sons would ever get married and they both surprised her by getting married in the same year, 2004.

On August 1, 1983 Anna started working as a temporary part-time employee for Southeastern. She worked at the Sojourner Truth Library at SUNY New Paltz. At that time Southeastern had staff working from the Library to do interlibrary loan. SUNY’s collection was used to fill many requests. This location was called the Southeastern Bibliographic Center (SEBC). Anna’s main duties were interlibrary loan and supervising student assistants. On July 1, 1984 she became a full-time permanent employee. While working at SEBC Anna was supervised by Christine Crawford-Oppenheimer and worked with and assisted many students that were hired to work part-time to help with interlibrary loan while attending SUNY New Paltz. While there, she was able to meet many people.

SEBC was phased out in 1994 and Southeastern was consolidated into one location. When that occurred, Anna came to our headquarters to continue her work with interlibrary loan and SEULS as well as take on many new responsibilities.

As Anna approaches her twenty second year with Southeastern, she has seen many changes and has acquired many new duties. Some of these duties are working with the Coordinated Collection Development Program, Receptionist, using File Maker to track the Consortial Database Program, Mandarin updates and assisting with SEAL.

Anna has been a great asset to Southeastern. She helps make things run smoothly and is ready and willing to help out whenever and wherever there is a need. With Southeastern’s ever changing needs and focus, this has been very important. During her years at Southeastern she has touched many people and continues to reach out to provide service to our members. Anna’s green thumb also provides the office with a pleasant place to work. When you come visit be sure to look around to enjoy the plantscape.

Pamela Wolven, Business and Office Manager

Southeastern News Online is published by SENYLRC staff.