Name, job title, and department:
Marie Turner, Processor of the Nicholas B. Scheetz Collection, Booth Family Center for Special Collections
What do you do—in one sentence:
I arrange, process, describe, and help enhance accessibility for the collections donated by the late Nicholas Scheetz, formerly Manuscripts Curator here at Georgetown.
Where are you from?
I grew up right here in the DC area (Bethesda, MD), but have spent most of my adult life in Philadelphia and Cambridge, England.
Why Georgetown/D.C.?
After the pandemic, I wanted to be closer to family and old friends, so last summer my spouse, two kids and I packed up our tiny house in Cambridge and crossed the pond. Georgetown is a very lucky spot to have landed: fantastic collections, wonderful colleagues, and inquisitive students – I have no complaints!
What are some of your hobbies?
I love yarn and fiber-based crafts like knitting and crocheting, and also enjoy foraging and learning about native edible plants.
Favorite book?
Um, pass? I can’t pick just one, but I can tell you that I love alternating between hefty English classics (I read Woolf’s Orlando for the first time in January), modern novels (NoViolet Bulawayo’s Glory is a recent favorite), and YA or Middle Grade fantasy (a Booth colleague recommended Catherynne M. Valente’s The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making and I ate it right up).
What are you listening to right now?
Since the move back to this area I’ve found myself listening to a lot of classic DC punk and indie bands like Minor Threat/Fugazi and Ted Leo and the Pharmacists. Chances are if you spot me in the library with my headphones in, I’m bopping along with one of them.
If you could be present for any event of the past, present, or future, what would it be?
As a medievalist by training, I would love to be able to go back in time and see that world first-hand, though I wouldn’t want to stay there!
What's your superpower/hidden talent?
Not sure it's a superpower, but I’m a decent home cook, and am pretty good at bringing a meal together from whatever scraps and leftovers are in the house.
What couldn't you live without?
Books! Is that too on the nose?
If you didn’t work in your current field, what would you be doing?
I was working on my PhD in English Literature when I fell in love with libraries and archives, so if I wasn’t here I might still be in that world, but as a young girl I dreamed of writing novels so maybe I would try my hand at that…
You are building your dream house. What is one room or feature you would want to include?
I have to say a library–or, failing that, at least built-in bookshelves!