Pamela Rose

Pam Rose and Sophia (dog).

Pam Rose and her dog Sophia (image by Nancy Parisi)

Published August 29, 2017 This content is archived.

Each month, we’ll introduce you to an interesting member of the Professional Staff Senate. This month’s featured member is Pam Rose, web services and library promotions coordinator in the Health Sciences Library (HSL).

How long have you worked at UB?

Fifty-one years. I started in September 1965.

What do you enjoy most about your job?

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As a health sciences librarian, my efforts not only help students, faculty and staff find what they may need, but sometimes directly affect patient care. A local physician may contact us needing an evidence based article on a rare condition – they have a patient in the office, and need that information now. Providing that assistance, knowing I’m improving someone’s life in that direct way, is immeasurably satisfying.

What's the most difficult part about your job?

Keeping up with cutting edge developments in information retrieval – database interfaces, terminology, new developments in the health sciences like genomic medicine – we need to be able to find information quickly, efficiently and correctly, and the landscape is always changing.

What would you say is your biggest achievement at UB?

I’m most proud of spearheading the benefit of therapy dogs on campus. While law students were among the first to bring therapy dog teams into their school during exams, the Health Sciences Library began a larger version of the program in fall 2011, and it’s spread widely to many other departments on campus, and other educational institutions in Western New York. The public relations aspect of providing relaxation in the libraries to enhance and promote learning fit right into my job duties and my “hobby” interests. I always say that all my worlds collided in that activity.

Tell us something about your department that isn't well known.

The Health Sciences Library is also open to the public, not just campus folks. We do offer consumer health counseling –  I am a certified Consumer Health Information Specialist as are several other librarians on staff – so we can direct community patrons to reliable health information presented in layman’s language. HSL also has a truly amazing History of Medicine collection that includes not only books, but the most amazing instruments and artifacts – well worth a visit!

If you were to share some advice for other professional staff, what would it be?

One of the first actions I took upon becoming a professional staff member in 1982 was to join the PSS. Getting to know colleagues from very different areas than my own was invaluable in expanding my knowledge not only of campus activities, but also of who to contact for specific needs that arise occasionally. Not to mention that I’ve made so many friends over the years.  

Do you have any hobbies? What do you do for fun?

I do a lot of volunteer work with animals. I have rescued cats for over 30 years, am a cat behavior counselor and serve on the board for my rescue group. I’ve also been a docent at the Buffalo Zoo for 15 years, helped to found and maintain the website for Therapy Animals of Western New York (TAWNY), and have my own therapy dog, Sophia – a Bernese Mountain dog. My husband Joel and I care for six cats and two dogs at home, which keeps us very busy, and we enjoy taking the dogs out to remote rural areas for short hikes. I’m also addicted to the Food Network and Star Trek and Star Wars. I read a lot of science fiction.

Do you have a favorite meal you like to prepare?

I have two: Linguine with pink clam sauce is one. I created the sauce because Joel likes white clam sauce and I like red, so the pink is a compromise. The other is spaghetti with rubies (beets), a recipe I found in a magazine.   

If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?

I actually don’t like to travel much. We’ve been to England, the Caribbean and all over the U.S., including Wyoming, the state in which I was born. If we changed that to universe, and were in an era where transport technology actually worked (beam me up, Scotty!), I would love to go to TRAPPIST-1 or any of the other recently discovered exoplanets. That way I could go and return in a day, and sleep in my own waterbed.

Any other fun facts about you?

In the 70s, I belonged to the Volvo Sports Car club and spent a lot of time as a navigator running road rallies on the weekends and racing a small, robin-egg-blue 850 Fiat out at Lancaster Speedway, as well as go-karts out in Springville. The Courier Express had a sports car column every Sunday written by Bob Feeney, which duly recorded the winners of local rallies and races. One entry noted something about the timer for an event at Lancaster Speedway having to get out of the way of a spinning Fiat – that was me. On my third run, I went a bit too fast (grin).

Profile by David Hill