Meet our NEW Librarian: Jonathan Carlson

Meet our new Science Librarian: Jonathan Carlson.  He is the liaison librarian to Biology, Biochemistry, Computer Science, Environmental Studies, Mathematics and Physics.

We asked him a few questions, and this is what he shared!

1)     What was your favorite food when you were a child?

I’m told my favorite baby food was beets.  (And that I would fall asleep in my high chair and still keep eating.)

2)      What is one of your favorite quotes?

“Don't worry about what you will do next. If you take one step with all the knowledge you have, there is usually just enough light shining to show you the next step.” ~Mardy Murie~  I live by this quote.  If not for this quote, and Terry Tempest Williams sharing it in her book The Open Space of Democracy I wouldn’t be where I am today.  It helped to guide me through my time in Lutheran Volunteer Corps at Open Arms of Minnesota and doing environmental education in Tanzania through Peace Corps.  And it has guided me here, to my job as science librarian at the College of Saint Benedict/Saint John’s University.

3)      What chore do you absolutely hate doing?

Cleaning the cage of my Congo African Grey parrot, Enoch.

4)      If you could learn to do anything, what would it be?

I’d love to be able to speak all the languages in the world.  A language tells you a lot about a culture and I love learning about other cultures.

5)      What do you want to be when you grow up?

Does this mean that I actually have to grow up some day?

6)      What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever done?

Living in Tanzania for 9 months in Peace Corps and sharing my two-room mud brick house (without water or electricity) with mice, rats, skinks, a bat, a couple venomous snakes, scorpions, spiders, cock roaches, termites, earwigs, and giant millipedes. (Though I liked the hedgehog that was in my backyard one night, the love birds that perched on my roof on occasion, and listening to the hyenas as I was falling asleep. The people of Tanzania were also generously kind and accommodating.)

7)      When was the last time you were nervous?

When I interviewed for this position in April.

8)      At what age did you become an adult?

Legally? When I turned 18.

Contact Jonathan at jcarlson@csbsju.edu when you need help with your research.