Living Behind the Wall
Librarian Marcus Richter grew up in East Germany. “In the U.S., almost everything is possible. … In East Germany, you had to accept that there were limits in every direction you went,” he says.
Marcus Richter understands the importance of education. He has spent a good portion of his life studying, both as a student of the church and a student of the library.
Richter, who grew up in East Germany, accepted a call to relocate to Minnesota after graduating from the seminary he attended. It was during this time that he realized being a pastor was not necessarily what he wanted to do for the rest of his life. He didn’t want to lose his background and education as a pastor, however, and studying library services was the solution to this.
Marcus Richter
“My wife and I had the idea that we wanted to uproot our lives and see the world,” says Richter, who joined the Alma College faculty this fall. “We originally wanted to stay in the U.S. for 18 months with our visas, but we liked it here. While we sometimes miss Germany, there is so much more opportunity here.”
He compares living in East Germany to sometimes living in a box. The reality, he says, is that you could live there and have a nice life without going to prison, but you also had to accept that you couldn’t travel or express your opinion freely all the time.
“In the U.S., almost everything is possible. Here, the only major limits are money and time. In East Germany, you had to accept that there were limits in every direction you went,” he says.
Prior to his position as a technical services librarian at Alma College, Richter worked as a catalog librarian at Truman State University in Kirksville, Mo. The challenge of balancing traditional library services with new technology is one of the many things he enjoys about working in a library.
“With the help of a dedicated support staff, I oversee the process of ordering books to the point when the books are on the shelf. Doing this, you could be without seeing a student, so that’s why I enjoy having the opportunity to be at the reference desk. I get that contact with students,” he says.
Richter, who taught a German civilization course at Truman, also teaches Beginning German I at Alma.
“Teaching a course is seeing the other end, seeing how a student uses the library and what his or her learning process is like, so I really enjoy that as well,” he says.
He, his wife and four children moved to Alma in June. It has been a perfect fit. Richter not only finds the campus to be a great place to get to know people, but he also feels strongly about the liberal arts education that Alma offers.
In his spare time, Richter enjoys reading crime novels, watching soccer and visiting with a different kind of Scots—Scotland is his favorite place he has traveled to, both for its scenery and its people.
— Ellen Doepke
Posted: Thu, November 5th, 2009 at 1:58PM
