Annie Stauffer is a librarian who works as a non-student part-time employee in the Resource Management and Discovery department in the Duane G. Meyer Library. She works on gift donation and processing.

 

“We’ve had a big backlog of donations,” she said. “I’ve been going through the items that have been donated and checking to see if we already have them, and if we don’t, analyzing the conditions of the items, documenting a list of everything that was donated, and then eventually deciding if we should add it to the library collection or not.” 

 

She clarified that she is not the only voice making the decision about whether or not a book is added to the library collection. However, part of deciding which books are added is vetting the materials themselves. She sends a list of books in particular disciplines to relevant MSU faculty and the library liaison associated with that department with a request to give their opinion about the relative merits of a book for Meyer’s shelves. 

 

Annie has been in this role for just over a year. She began in November 2024 after moving from Philadelphia, where she worked as a Collection Management Librarian for The University of the Arts, which closed in 2024. She and her husband, Chris Rodgers, moved to Springfield after Rodgers received a position as Artist-in-Residence within Missouri State University’s Art and Design department. He is a ceramicist. 

 

Annie and Chris met when they lived in Philadelphia, where she had moved to pursue her master’s in library and information science, which she received from Drexel University. Before that, she had a very colorful career and several fascinating life experiences. 

 

Annie is originally from Pennsylvania, and she grew up near Allentown until her family moved to Vermont when she was a teenager. After high school, she went to the University of Vermont and majored in theater and film. She took a ten-year gap between college and graduate school and lived in Los Angeles as well as Chicago and later, Brattleboro, Vermont in the southern part of the state on the Massachusetts border. She worked at an art supply store and a movie theater, she was a dog walker and a dog sitter, she worked at bakeries, did some acting and art department work on student films for friends who were in film school, and even worked for a circus over a few summers.

 

When she moved to Brattleboro, she volunteered at the library. She enjoyed volunteering and that led to her going to graduate school. She was also ready to be back in a city again. So, she moved to Philadelphia to begin her studies at Drexel and soon after, the pandemic hit. 

 

While some people found the pandemic isolating, that probably wasn’t a major issue for Annie as her favorite thing to do is inherently solitary. 

 

“I’m a big reader,” she said. “I’m almost at a personal record this year. I could probably get to 65 books by the end of the year.”

 

Annie reads almost entirely fiction, 90% of which has been translated from another language. She also reads primarily women writers. She likes post-war fiction as well as Japanese fiction set in the 70s and 80s and autofiction, which blends autobiography and fiction. In 2025, her favorite books so far have all been found in Meyer Library. They are: 

 

Sula by Toni Morrison

The Wall by Marlen Haushofer

History, A Novel by Elsa Morante 

Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor 

 

When asked about the Neapolitan Novels by Elena Ferrante, her eyes light up. The books in the series include My Brilliant Friend, The Story of a New Name, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, and The Story of the Lost Child. 

 

“That’s a good example of literature I really like,” she said. “Woman author, it’s in translation, it’s post-war Italy. It spans almost their whole lives, so probably 50-60 years of their whole life.”

 

It could be described as a story about female friendship and how that friendship evolves and devolves and changes. It’s about the intense rivalry in friendships. There is a large cast of characters, and all the families are listed in the front of the books. 

 

“I will say, when I finished the last one, I cried,” Annie admits. “It’s so immersive. When you read it, you’re really dropped into that world, and it carries on for four books. So you’re part [of] a long journey with these characters.” 

 

Other things Annie enjoys: Comfortable clothing. Her cats, Masha (female, age 7) and Seymour (male, age 2). 70s/80s New Wave. Indie music. Alex G. Modest Mouse. Bonny Doon. Traveling. The color red. Tourmaline. 

 

She also really likes Chris. Her first date with him was memorable. 

 

“He brought a book with him. We clicked right away.”