Camille Torres Hoven is the Director of the Oliver Wendell Holmes Library (OWHL) and an Advisor at Andover. She was formerly the Co-Director of the Charles & Elizabeth Almy Library at BB&N and worked at the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library at Harvard University and as an archivist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Torres Hoven currently enjoys reading Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson books alongside her nine-year-old daughter.
1. What do you do specifically as Director of the Library?
“As the Library Director, I oversee all the departments of the OWHL like the Instructional Team, The… [Nest], the Archives, all OWHL Programming, TEDx, the OWHL Scholars, the OWHL Student Advisory Board, and a lot more. More importantly, I work with my incredibly talented team to make sure that we are a safe and welcome space for all PA community members to explore their intellectual and social pursuits.”
2. Can you share a bit about your journey and how you found your interest in library science and archives management?
“I went to school for history for a little while, and I was convinced I was going to get a PhD in history and that I was going to write history books. I had this whole different trajectory and, when I was there, I changed my mind. First of all, I loved working with students, and I just realized I didn’t want to spend my life researching and writing my own books, that I liked assisting people more. I was torn. I was really considering going back for a Master’s in Education or going to library science, but I think because I had done a lot of [substituting] and because I had this really big history background, I decided to go into archives which was a lot of fun at first. I was the Chomsky Project Archivist [at MIT], but again, I missed students, and so when I had the opportunity to switch to high schools, which is something I hadn’t done in my twenties, I jumped at the opportunity.”
3. As someone with a background in both library science and history, how do you plan to support Andover?
“With my background, because I do come from academia, I feel like a lot of the instruction I used to do was geared at helping students and preparing them for college. I worked at MIT and Harvard, and I worked at a women’s history library for a little while too, the Schlesinger [library], and so I do have that background and that expertise. I am also kind of an archives nerd. BB&N had a tiny [archive], and [the OWHL] has a really awesome one, and Dr. Roberts is absolutely fun to work with. So with that background, we created the OWHL Scholars Program because we wanted to get students who wanted to use this place, not just for socializing, which I also think is a really fun thing about this place, I don’t think that should go away, but there is a lot of scholarship that could be had here. A lot of exploration with our archives, and a lot of sources that people don’t realize [are here].”
4. What’s your favorite part of the library?
“I love the Freeman Room. I guess I like it because it’s the big comfy room. If I were a student, I would like [the Garver Room] (Silent) to do my work, but… I like the comfy furniture, I like that it’s old, I like the wood panels, I like that you can still see books. On the second floor, you can see them, but a lot of our books are kind of hidden away. We have over 70,000 books! So they’re here, they’re just in the attic and the basement, spread out. I like how in Freeman you can visually work and see books, but I also like that it’s a social place where you don’t have to whisper quietly. I also think it’s fun for events, I love doing movie nights there. We had the PJ party there. I just think it’s a place where you have the books, and you have the social, and you have the comfy furniture, and to me, it represents what a library could be instead of just one or the other.”
5. What makes a good or successful library?
“It really depends on the community. I worked with some very stodgy but prestigious libraries, but they were loved by their community. Researchers came, and I think people would say the Schlesinger is one of their favorite libraries. It’s very pretty, and it serves that community’s needs. I think also being flexible in realizing what a community needs [is important]. So a public library might have to deal with different situations, then we’d have to deal with helping the homeless community or supporting x, y, and z. [Successful libraries] do that well. This library is successful because it does a lot of things that the community needs. We don’t have a student center, but the OWHL allows people to be social. We knew we needed a place for quiet study, so we have the Garver Room. We needed a place for your creativity and art and different explorations of machines and materials, so we have The [Nest]. We needed people who wanted to come in and like to look in the archives and go deep… So we have that. I think this is a successful library.”
6. Can you highlight a project you’re proud of doing during your time as the Director?
“I’ve only been here about a year and a half, but I think the thing I’m most proud of would probably be the OWHL Student Advisory Board. We started it last year, a kind of pilot [program], and it was a pretty small, loyal little group, and they were great. This year, we have 17 members, which we’ve divided into three different groups. One works on the TEDx program, one works on the PJ party and book club, all that kind of stuff, and the other works on a book festival that we’re going to have in May, and they have just been incredible. All 17 students have been so fun to work with and have pushed me in ways where I would [say], ‘No, we can’t do it. No one’s going to come…’ and they go ‘No, let’s just do it,’ and I’m like, ‘Okay, let’s do it.’
They’ve really stretched my creative juices and made me think of things in a new way. So I think that I’m most proud of it, especially because it started small, and it’s really grown into something really great, and I think working with all those students has been my favorite experience here.”
7. You also are a co-organizer of TEDx events. Can you share your role for this event at Andover?
“For the TEDx specifically, I work with Mr. Curtis and Mr. Denby. Mr. Curtis worked on it a long time ago, before Covid[-19], and he had, before I came, been trying to revive it, but couldn’t find the right partnerships. So he mentioned it to me, and he said, ‘Let’s do it,’ and so we ran with it. My role has been getting the license, and working with the Tang [Institute] and the Polk [Lillard Center] to make sure we can make it happen. I put together the application, but I do this in conjunction with Mr. Curtis. I sent out the call, and then [we met] together with the Student Advisory Board who picked up the theme. We will pick the people who follow the TEDx rules [as speakers], and I’m so pumped about it. I think it’s going to be so exciting.”
8. You had roles at MIT and as the Co-Director of the Charles and Elizabeth Almy Library at BB&N. How have they influenced your role at Andover?
“I thought that going from BB&N, Buckingham, Brown, and Nichols School, and that’s the Charles and Arvin Library, I was prepared for this school because it’s a private school. We also went through a renovation that made the place much more social, and I thought [BB&N] was much larger. It’s very different because it is a day school and the experience was very different. I think it prepared me because it helped me realize how stressed students were. I mean, to be honest, I’m older, I had a very different high school experience, and I had a very different track to college. To me, there were the [colleges] you went to, and it was no big deal, and I think being at Buckingham Brown and Nichols and seeing how stressed students were, seeing how they would do anything to get into college really prepared me for [Andover]. Both schools, I think, are very stressful. Even though there are all these fun things and they try to support you, I think everyone’s very competitive.”
9. What’s your favorite book?
“‘I can’t think of my favorite book’ is my answer because I like too many books, but I am currently reading deep into the Percy Jackson series with my daughter, and I am loving it. So that was going to be my answer.”
10. How do you see the role of libraries evolving into the digital age and what steps has the library taken to adopt these changes?
“I think this is a question that always gets asked, and I think this is a question that librarians have been dealing with since the beginning of libraries, but libraries are more than just books, and they always have been. So I think that’s one of the big things for us, specifically, when it comes to the digital age, we have tons of digitized materials. We get digital access to books, [and] we try to provide multiple access points because some kids do prefer the physical book, and some kids would rather listen to the book and have an audiobook. Some kids would rather see it on the screen and use the different ways that you can get an e-book through E-book ProQuest, Ebook Central… So we try to provide access to all those kinds of things and help them understand it.”
