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Bassett enjoys best of her professional world
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Manteca Public Library Assistant librarian Ruthanne Bassett assists Veritas Elementary School student Erica Ceja in finding a book she needs for an assignment. - photo by ROSE ALBANO RISSO

MANTECA – The story of Ruthanne Bassett’s career journey is a simile of sorts. It turned out to be like a shopping trip to the mall. You go there with a specific item in mind to purchase. But other things grab your attention while you are browsing, and end up settling down on something totally different from what you initially had in mind to buy and go home with that.

That’s exactly how Bassett’s professional life played out.

Bassett recently retired after 15 years working as an assistant librarian for the Stockton-San Joaquin County Library System. The first three years were at the Cesar Chavez main library in Stockton; the last 12 years at the Manteca Public Library.

Her job as librarian though is far removed from her academic concentration at the University of California at Davis where she received her bachelor’s degree in Agrarian Studies. Her goal was to get a job as a farm advisor something to do with food science. But along the way, just like a shopper at the mall, other temptations crossed her path and caved in to about a couple of them. The first was a part-time job at the university while she was a student there. The second one was a teaching stint with the Manteca Unified School District. She taught fourth- and sixth-grade classes at Neil Hafley School for two years. She also worked as a substitute teacher for different schools in the district.

“I never used my (college) degree,” said the native Mantecan, talking about her job experiences.

But she is singing no requiems for that conscious decision. Not after she discovered her love of working with children, and with the public in general, in both the classroom and library setting. But even more so with the latter which she viewed as less “confined” with respect to the classroom atmosphere and when compared with that of a library. There’s a “lot more freedom” in the library setting as a workplace, she opined. Additionally, she noted that people who are in the library “want to be here” versus those who are in school, such as some students, who are there because their presence is mandatory.

 

What endeared her to the assistant librarian position

“I followed my heart and I’m glad I did because I’ve enjoyed it,” she said of being an assistant librarian. She liked the diversity of her workplace which had her working at the reference desk, helping with setting up programs, and leading Story Time for young children.

She continues the benefits of having the best of her academic and professional worlds even post-retirement. She still works some hours part-time at the library and still volunteers in the programs she previously performed as a paid employee. 

“This library is my home,” she said matter-of-factly by way of an explanation.

That nostalgic and sentimental feeling is nothing new for Bassett. After all, she was already volunteering at the Manteca Library when she was at Manteca High where she graduated in 1970. Her elementary grades were at Calla School (before it became a continuation school), when it was just a five-room building of learning, and at Lincoln School. Her heart was set on graduating from Calla Elementary. Alas, the year before she would have graduated, unification happened when voters in the independent small school districts that included Calla, Nile Garden and New Haven elected to be part of the Manteca Unified School District. Thus, Bassett ended up attending Lincoln School during her eighth-grade year then went on to Manteca High.

 

Thoughts about the future of libraries

While many are predicting the demise of the library in the wake of modern digital technology conveniently providing information, previously available only by a visit to the library, at everyone’s fingertips in a nanosecond, Bassett still believes that libraries will never go away. She holds fast to that belief even in light of the fact that 15 years ago when she started working at the library, there were just two public-access computers. Today, there are 20 of them, and that’s not including printers and those used for references and catalogs.

Since that time, there has been “a lot more people using them,” she said of the computer devices. Library patrons need only their library memberships to access, free of charge, the devices – except when it comes to using the printers. There’s a minimal fee charged for that use. Instead of the promise of a demise due to the proliferation of digital technology which is moving by leaps and bounds literally every second, libraries will always be a presence,  Bassett believes, albeit it “will always change as a meeting place.” It will continue to offer things that people want to use, so “it will keep changing” while remaining, at heart, as a library that is a repository of information.

“Years ago, we had the card catalogues. Now, we have computers,” Bassett said, pointing one of the significant changes that have occurred in libraries.

“I’m optimistic that libraries will continue to exist. I don’t think the support will go away,” she said, referring to financial and material donations that the Manteca Library, for one, has continued to receive from various philanthropists in the community as well as from the City of Manteca. A new and larger building for the library has been under discussion at City Hall and among residents for years.

 

Agriculture remains close to the heart of retired librarian

Bassett has not despaired completely from walking away, in a professional sense, from her focus of studies at the university.  While her career has taken a detour that left her permanently parked at the library setting, what she learned in her agricultural studies is now being utilized in the domestic front. She and her husband, Quentin, maintain not just a floral and vegetable garden but a small orchard as well at their small spread in northeast Manteca. Her husband, who also attended UC Davis and has worked as a cabinet maker, has been the owner of a window-washing business in Manteca for many years.

Along with volunteering at the three grandkids’ schools – Golden West Elementary and Joshua Cowell prior to that – Bassett fills her time during retirement puttering in the garden. The Bassetts maintains a year-round vegetable garden where, this winter, they have been harvesting broccoli, Swiss chard and other cold-weather crops. In the summer, they grow tomatoes, among others. “Anything I can grow,” she said of the types of plants planted in their garden.

Last year, she tried to grow popcorn planting a dozen of them. That effort was a mild success. “That was an experiment,” she laughed.

Their orchard may be small but they have managed to fill the area with a large variety of fruit-producing varieties such as pomegranate, peach, plum, apricot, cherry, orange, and lemon, among others. In the end, Bassett has managed to keep the best of all her professional worlds.