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‘Brava’ to Duke’s Music Librarian

Laura Williams leads Duke’s Music Library, loves opera and takes voice lessons

Duke music librarian Laura Williams takes voice lessons in her spare time. Photo courtesy of Laura Williams
Duke music librarian Laura Williams takes voice lessons in her spare time. Photo courtesy of Laura Williams

Name: Laura WilliamsPosition: Music librarian, Duke University LibrariesYears at Duke: 18

What I do at Duke: We provide research support for faculty, students, staff and community members. Sometimes this involves helping people find a piece of music that they want to perform or study. Sometimes it’s helping somebody with a research project and to find out how to do research in music.

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If I had $5 million, I would: buy an apartment in Florence, Italy. My husband and I lived in Florence for a summer, and it was the most wonderful, congenial place to live. We spent so much of our time, hours and hours, walking around the city, and that was just kind of enchanting.

My first ever job: I delivered newspapers. This was at 12 or 14 years old. I don’t know why I chose to do that because I’m not the most coordinated person, so when I was riding around on a bike throwing newspapers onto people’s lawns, I was always throwing newspapers into trees and underneath bushes.

The best advice I ever received: From my dad, who told me many, many years ago to pursue something I really care about. He is a retired college professor, so of course we talked a lot about what I would do for a career and where I would go for college.

What I love about Duke: Duke Libraries has such a collegial staff. Everyone is really pulling together for the same goals, to support what students and faculty are doing.

When I’m not at work, I like to: read a lot. That’s kind of an occupational hazard since I’m a librarian. I also take voice lessons with a wonderful faculty member here in the Duke Music Department, and my husband is actually my piano accompanist.

Something most people don’t know about me: For a few years, my husband and I ended up making a lot of wedding cakes. We were graduate students at the time and we had a couple of friends getting married who couldn’t afford a wedding cake. We actually took cake decorating and construction lessons, and of course, we knew a lot of poor graduate students. We ended up getting pulled in. We made some fairly fancy wedding cakes, including one that was a three-tier wedding cake and actually made marzipan fruits to put on it.

An interesting/memorable day at work for me: when the Duke Music Library reopened after our renovation in 2011. It’s a great collection, but it was a really dark, kind of claustrophobic space. It was a real joy to see people coming into the library and being excited about being here and having space to use.

Music I like: My grandfather’s family actually worked for the Metropolitan Opera. I felt like I had that love of opera from my grandfather instilled in me from the very beginning. We used to listen to opera LPs together. My grandfather had a wonderful recording of an opera by Giacomo Puccini, called “Tosca”. It was Maria Callas, who is a very dramatic singer, singing the role of Tosca.