Meet New Member Isaac Needell

by Evelyn Campbell

Isaac Needell is the new law librarian at the Norfolk Law Library. He was born in Durham, New Hampshire, but had spent most of his life in Maine.

Isaac graduated from Colby College in Waterville, Maine, with a BA double major in classics and classical civilizations. While he was employed as a ranger at Baxter State Park in Millinocket is when he started working with the Maine statutes – mostly those dealing with game and wildlife, and Isaac discovered that he enjoyed working with the statutes and tracking legislature.

When his wife, Carolyn Swan Needell, was undertaking a fellowship at the University College London – Qatar, Isaac took the opportunity to reevaluate his career choices and enroll in library school at the same university. He was able to concentrate on his studies and be a stay-at-home dad to their first child, who was born in Qatar. Isaac graduated in 2017 with an MA in Library and Information Studies.

The family returned to Maine late in 2017 and Isaac started his job as an associate law librarian at the Maine State Law and Legislative Reference Library in Augusta. He rediscovered his love of working with statutes, tracking legislation and engaging with the public.

His time at the Maine State Law and Legislative Reference Library was a short one. Three months after he started his job there, the family moved to Norfolk, where Carolyn had accepted the position of curator of glass for the Chrysler Museum of Art.

“It was a tough decision but I knew there’d be other libraries, while there was only one Chrysler,” Isaac said. The family moved to Norfolk in April 2018. Some months after the move, their second daughter was born and Isaac stayed home with her while he checked out the library world in the Tidewater area.

He had had an opportunity to work in a special library setting when he volunteered at Weill Cornell Medicine in Qatar. He had staffed the reference desk, did collection weeding, did material purchasing, and cataloging. He had also spent some weeks at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, building original cataloging records, and conducted an academic case study. Having had these opportunities, he was open to building up other parts of his library career.

Earlier this spring he was hired by the Hampton Public Library. Isaac enjoyed the public library system and was able to participate in all aspects of managing a branch library. He was able to design the outreach for public schools for the summer reading program, and put his digital skills to good use.

The Norfolk Law Library job became available in the summer and Isaac had the chance to return to law librarianship. “Law libraries are fascinating,” he said. “It really is the best of both worlds – public service and also answering the more challenging research questions from the legal profession.”

In the meantime he is learning as much as he can from retiring law librarian, Donna Bausch, who will officially retire on October 31.

Isaac Needell and Donna Bausch ... the torch has been passed ...