Max Yela has led UWM Libraries’ Special Collections–the premier public collection of rare books and special printed materials in southeastern Wisconsin–since 1994. The collection consists of over 100,000 printed items from the 15th century to the present, covering a wide range of subjects that hold long-term historical research potential for UWM academic programs in the arts, humanities, and social sciences. Collecting strengths include American nursing history, the book as an art medium, comic books and zines, local and regional history, Native American literature, women’s and gender studies, and much more.
As head of the department, Max curates its holdings and creates programming around them, instructs as many as 100 visiting classes each year, provides research assistance, produces programs and exhibitions, and mentors interns. He has taught several courses at UWM, including History of Books & Printing in the School of Information Studies, and Book Arts Survey and Book Arts Concepts in the department of Art & Design, where he is currently a member of the graduate faculty. Outside of UWM, he has organized exhibitions, presented at conferences and workshops, and written catalog essays and reviews. For his many contributions to the arts community, he received the 2017 Wisconsin Visual Arts Achievement Award.
Q: What has been your path?
Max Yela: I started out as a biology major at the State University of New York at Oswego, but bombed out. I was too confused, too young, and I was out of college for a while. I went back as an adult to the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and studied history, which I love, and I began to understand how libraries worked. The storage and retrieval of information, how that functioned in my research, really fascinated me. I also wanted to be of service. As I have gotten older, I realized that those are, of course, the two major legs of being an information professional.
So you decided to pursue a library career.
I got an NEA Title IIB Fellowship based on my ethnic background and experience to attend graduate school at Simmons College in Boston, which had and still has a stellar information program. I concentrated in archives but my favorite course was History of Books and Printing. After earning my MLS I accepted a post-graduate fellowship at the University of Delaware, where I served in the reference department for nine months. The library was rebuilding its special collections facility and when that opened, I became its public services librarian, a job I held for nine years.
How did you come to Milwaukee?
When the UWM job came up, it had all the hallmarks of the kind of position that I was looking for: I would have the ability to almost start from the ground up and have my vision realized, and it was on a Great Lake, like Oswego is, and I really wanted to get back to the Lakes. The interview went great and they offered me the job right away, but I had to think about what I would give up in Delaware–free college tuition for my kids, among other things. I spent a glorious summer weekend in Milwaukee and finally said “yes.” Lake Michigan was stupendous and the city, compared to cities out east, was sparkling clean and easy to get around.
What is your vision?
To make a public special collections as public and as useful as possible. To reach as many individuals as I can in our university community and our regional area via teaching, outreach, and programming. To demonstrate that it is an essential experience to do research and to learn in a special collections. And I had a vision for an internship program that has functioned really well to train students to do the professional work that they want to do. I think I have been successful with these goals.
Can you give me an example of how you contribute to student success?
Sure. Well, first our internship program, but also the many fieldwork students we have mentored from a variety of disciplines over the years. Teaching courses in academic departments, serving on graduate and PhD committees, and my graduate faculty status in Art & Design all stem from my practice as a librarian, and I believe these have greatly contributed to student success. Some examples from visiting undergraduate classes: all Art History 101 classes come through Special Collections when they are studying early and medieval manuscripts; all Art Survey and 2D Concepts classes visit the department every semester to gain an understanding of the book as an art medium. It’s really important that they have the experience of seeing our examples and putting them in historical context. Art & design, history, art history, English, Celtic studies, film, dance, theatre–these are programs that use us actively each semester. My outreach isn’t just what I can do for you in the library but what I can do for your program as a librarian to help move your program forward.
What do you love most about your job?
I love working with books and patrons, I love to see my interns grow, but what I really love is making connections. I love talking to one researcher, then talking to another, and seeing a connection between their interests. I set up a time for the two to meet, and they will start talking and get excited, and suddenly they are off collaborating around this for the rest of their lives.
Do you have a favorite object in the collection?
That is so hard. My specialty is the book as an art medium, and I try not to give that collection all my attention, but my favorite book is an artist’s book called In Here, Out There (1998) by Jody Williams. It doesn’t look like a book, it’s a small rectangular box, very red on the outside and cool pastel greens on the inside, with a little rope ladder that leads from the inside to a window to the outside, so there is a connection between the two. There is a drawer on the inside and one on the outside and they hold tiny accordion-fold books with beautiful, poetic texts relating to the interior ideas of quiet and surrender, and the exterior, of danger and excitement. I never get tired of looking at this book and how it offers a sense of balance to life. I’m a very internal person despite what people think of me, but I also like being “out there,” and you should like being out there, and you should like being in here.
That encapsulates your view of librarianship?
Oh yeah, absolutely.