A
Short History of WTS
and the State Technical Services
Act of 1965
Lenny
Black, Director of Wisconsin TechSearch, was recently
at the Wisconsin Historical Society working on a literature
search when he came across the 1965 Congressional Hearings
on H.R. 3420, the bill that created Wisconsin TechSearch.
Wisconsin
TechSearch was created under the State Technical Services
Act of 1965 (15 USC 37). The bill was conceived to "promote
economic growth by supporting state and regional centers to
place the findings of science usefully in the hands of American
enterprise." It allowed the federal government to give
seed money to universities and other research centers to create
services that would speed the development and spread of new
technology.
Originally named the Information Services Division (ISD) of
the University of Wisconsin-Madison Engineering Library, the
program's name was changed to Wisconsin TechSearch in the
late 1980s.
WTS
has grown steadily over the years. In 1975, our staff consisted
of two professional librarians, a part time clerk, and two
runners (both named Scott). Today WTS employs four full-time
librarians, two full-time office managers, two part-time financial
and copyright specialists, and 22 student workers.
Paying
by Credit Card?
Did
you know that WTS accepts Visa and Mastercard? Any time you
want to pay by credit card, just call us at 608-262-5917 (our
web forms are not secure, so please don't enter your credit
card information there). You have two options when you pay by
credit card: we can either charge your credit card one time
or we can store your credit card information in our database
and autmatically pay your invoices each month.
When
you call, we'll need the following information: 1) type of credit
card (Visa or Mastercard); 2) credit card number; 3) expiration
date; 4) the ID from the back of the card (usually 3 or 4 digits);
and 5) the zip code of the credit card's billing address.
WTS
bills our clients monthly, so your credit card will only be
charged once a month. If you want us to automatically pay your
invoice each month, you will be sent a credit card receipt and
an invoice stamped 'paid.' You'll never have to contact us.
Please
call or email us if you
have any questions about this service.
Staff
Profile: Rebekah Turner
The
most recognizable voice in our office belongs to Rebekah Turner,
our senior office manager. Rebekah has been a fixture at WTS
since 1996, when she was hired as a student runner. She became
office manager in 1997 and has served in that capacity ever
since.
Not
only is she the front-line troubleshooter, answering clients'
email and phone questions, she also manages our office by ordering
supplies and maintaining equipment, logging and searching requests,
and providing work direction for our student employees.
Rebekah
enjoys medieval and Renaissance recreation, especially madrigals.
She has traveled throughout Brazil and London and hopes to see
Italy someday. She likes science fiction and good romance novels
and is currently reading Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon
Days and Absolutely, Positively by Jayne Ann Krentz.
Student
Employees are Indispensable
WTS
employs 22 UW-Madison students who run to campus libraries to
photocopy articles and retrieve books, search the library catalog,
scan and email articles, ship books, and request articles from
off-campus suppliers through OCLC. Our students work nearly
300 hours a week to make our office run like a well-oiled machine.
So
who are these students, these pillars of WTS? They are sophomores
and graduate students, theater majors and accounting majors,
musicians and artists. They're originally from Chicago, New
York, Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin. Some of our students have
only worked for us a few months, while some have been with WTS
for 3 or 4 years. Zach, a grad student studying Landscape Architecture,
plans to join the Peace Corps in January. Hannah, who's from
New York City, has acted in off-Broadway productions and previously
worked as a receptionist in a Japanese hair salon. One of Lisa's
hobbies is sleeping, Nate enjoys silkscreening, and Laura likes
to avoid homework. Several play the guitar and Julia plays the
cello. Most students work 10-15 hours a week for WTS and generally
seem to enjoy working here. Nick says, "It's the coolest."
WTS
is incredibly proud of the excellent work our students do day
after day. Without them, we wouldn't get much done and we certainly
wouldn't have as much fun!
WTS at SLA and AALL 2004
