Meet the librarian: Dr. Lisa Speer
August 29, 2018 - Lisa Speer
Did you ever meet someone who worked at an historic site or a museum and wonder what
educational path they followed to get there? Those are questions I get all the time
as someone who works in the field of public history. I am the university archivist
in Riley-Hickingbotham Library, and I also coordinate the public history program within
Ouachita’s history department.
During my years in grad school, I discovered archival work. At Mississippi, I worked
work with the papers of some of the state’s literary giants, like Nobel Prize-winning
author William Faulkner. Working with Faulkner’s papers led to my first faculty position
at Southeast Missouri State University’s archives in Cape Girardeau. Most people are
surprised to discover that SEMO has one of the world’s four largest Faulkner collections.
By training, I am an historian, a librarian and an archivist. After I graduated from
Ouachita in 1988 with a bachelor’s degree in history, I earned a master’s degree (1991)
and a doctorate (1998) in history from the University of Mississippi and a master’s
degree in library and information studies (2000) from The University of Alabama. When
I started graduate school in 1988, I wanted to teach history at a college or university,
like my Ouachita mentor, History Professor Lavell Cole. He was the most amazing lecturer
ever. I still get chills thinking about his lecture on the Alexander Hamilton-Aaron
Burr duel!
On my first day of work at SEMO, I walked into the Center for Faulkner Studies, where
I met a graduate student in the Department of English, Thomas Eaton. Thomas was a
non-traditional student who had moved from his parents’ cattle ranch in southeast
Wyoming to southeast Missouri to work on his master’s degree in rhetoric and composition.
We shared an interest in Faulkner … and in one another. On Dec. 22, 2005, we tied
the knot at Francois Missionary Baptist Church near Malvern, Ark.
In 2013, Thomas and I moved to Little Rock because I was selected to serve as the
state historian and director of the Arkansas History Commission and State Archives.
I was honored to serve the state of Arkansas for almost five years in that capacity.
In February 2018, I joined the staff of Riley-Hickingbotham Library and am delighted
to be home! Thomas divides his time between Arkansas and Wyoming, my second and much-beloved
home these days.
By Dr. Lisa Speer, Ouachita archivist and associate professor
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