Quick Summary
Minitex staff were saddened this week to learn of the passing of Bill Asp, a beloved champion of Minnesota libraries. Asp directed Minnesota's State Library Agency and served on the Minitex Policy Advisory Council for over 20 years. In 2010, he recorded an interview for the Minitex Oral History Project that is now available in the Minnesota Digital Library.
We were saddened this week to learn of the death of Bill Asp, a champion of Minnesota libraries.
Bill was director of Minnesota’s State Library Agency for more than 20 years before assuming the directorship at Dakota County Library in 1996. He led the development of several state plans for library services, organized two Minnesota Governor’s Pre-White House Conferences on Library and Information Services, worked to achieve passage of state legislation for multitype library systems and for mandated public library service, and led efforts to secure funding for state government libraries to participate in the PALS automation system.
Friend to Minitex, Bill worked closely with both Alice Wilcox and Bill DeJohn, serving on the Minitex Policy Advisory Council from 1975 to 1995. Together, the State Library Agency and Minitex created the Minitex/Office of Library Development and Services (LDS) Joint Standards Review Task Force that created standards and guidelines for early automation in Minnesota, including barcode and indexing standards, and guidance for early digitization projects.
We had the pleasure of interviewing Bill Asp for the Minitex Oral History Project in 2010. In the interview, Asp reflects on his career working with so many libraries and staff over the years, and his role in expanding regional public library services in the state. You can listen to the recording or read from his interview transcript in the Minitex collection in the Minnesota Digital Library.
Minitex staff stayed in touch after the interview, and often reached out to Bill in search of answers to questions about Minnesota library history. He always responded kindly and patiently to our questions, and we will miss him.
In the interview, Asp shares a bit of his personal philosophy. "I’ve always been a real optimist and a real positive person, and so my words of wisdom would be: don’t sit around and fret about the future of libraries, get busy to create it."
