Kate Stewart wrote a biography of librarian Ruth Rapport (1923-2010) after buying many of her belongings at an estate sale. From this purchase, Stewart journeyed through archival materials, and learned more about one woman’s dedication to libraries and books.
The Epilogue from the book is given here, not as a spoiler but as an enhancement to our readers to consider the lines between subjects that stay with us, as we walk along the stacks, as we investigate lives in documents.
Stewart has worked at the Library of Congress (Civil Rights History Project), the office of U.S. Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), the Arizona Historical Society in Tucson, and the Arizona State Museum at the University of Arizona, the latter as part of the Doris Duke Native Oral History Revitalization Project. She is today a cataloger and a writing coach.
Keeping (and Telling) the Past 