Bio:
Steve Weiter has been Dean of Oakland University Libraries since 2015 and is still a “recovering Law Librarian.” He has been an ALLUNY member since 1997 and served as ALLUNY President at some point in the distant past. Might have been 2004 – Google it (or check out the ALLUNY archives for more history)! Having worked in various library types over the past 25 years, he is retiring in mid-August in order to fling flies at fish, lose golf balls in the woods, and generally stir up trouble in other settings.
Title: Dean, University Libraries
Library: Oakland University
Location: Rochester, MI
Website: https://library.oakland.edu/people/bios/index.php?bio=Weiter
Five Questions:
1. Three people with whom you would love to have dinner? They have to be alive in order to share dinner right?
- Stephen King
- Dave Berry
- Bruce Springsteen
2. Skill you’d like to learn? I always wanted to be able to sing like Bing Crosby, tell jokes like Groucho Marx, and dance like Fred Astaire.
3. Three goals for the year?
- Spend more time fishing
- Build a kitchen island with my son
- Play “syzygies” in a Scrabble game
4. Favorite book? So many to choose from, but the two I go back to read repeatedly are The Stand by Stephen King and A Game of Thrones, the first book in the Song of Fire and Ice, by George R.R. Martin.
5. If you could change one law, what would it be? Copyright. I would repeal the Sonny Bono “Protection of Mickey Mouse Act” (112 Stat 2827), withdraw from the Berne Convention, and revert to the Statute of Anne (8 Ann. c. 21; or 8 Ann. c. 19).
And because sometimes five questions aren’t enough, I present two bonus Q&A’s!
6. Favorite thing about your job? I have been fortunate enough to work with many talented and dedicated people throughout my career, and for that I am grateful. And I have truly enjoyed helping others find the info they need. But right now, my favorite thing about my job is I get to retire from it August 16.
7. Favorite item in your library? We have a set of pens used by LBJ to sign all of the “Great Society” civil rights legislation passed in 1965. The plaque is the only one I have ever seen referring to an American Congress as “fabulous.”
