Monday, August 8, 2022

Remembering Caroline

 Next week will be my photo-laden post about my baby skinny pigs. It was going to be this week but I got some news that significantly altered my blogging plans.

Side tangent: how do you give someone bad news? For the person who first informed me, she cared enough to make a phone call. I was expecting we were going to talk about something else, but instead she shared the heart-breaking revelation that a dear mutual friend of ours, Caroline Freibauer, had died.

This is the Facebook notification her family published: 

https://www.facebook.com/caroline.freibauer/posts/pfbid02t8NZoWW3vPk7eAvd2ue6bXoREpeJd7EQcSRYjbtgXGNzXojZUwN9wcJoW8xgNCHwl

 I enjoy figuring out exactly when I first met people. I think for Caroline and I, it was 2015. We were both part of a panel for Ontario Library Association's SuperConference, called "TLLP @ your LLC". My first impression was that Caroline didn't like me. Turns out that Caroline has a sharp, dry sense of humour, so when she declared "There's no way I want to present after YOU!", it was meant as a compliment, not a dig. Caroline didn't think she was as amazing, but she was.

It was in 2016 that I had the chance to work in depth with Caroline. She applied to be on the editorial board of The Teaching Librarian when I was the editor-in-chief. It was clear that she was tremendously overqualified - she had actual journalism experience - and we very happily welcomed her to the editorial board. She was part of the group with Jennifer Goodhand, Derrick Grose, Allison Hall, Leslie Holdwerda, Sarah Oesch, Brenda Roberts, Angela Thompson, and Leslie Whidden. She debuted in Volume 24 Issue 1 of TingL.

Caroline was an absolute gift to work with at OSLA. If you had the fortune to be on a committee with Caroline, you knew that work would get done. While she was on the editorial board, she edited efficiently, met deadlines, and knew the best way to get the most out of writers, readers, and everyone involved in the process of putting together a magazine. She introduced a new column in Volume 25 called "Crowd Sourced", which involved consulting multiple school library professionals for answers to pressing issues. It was for these reasons, and many more, that I felt confident enough to "retire" from running The Teaching Librarian - because Caroline agreed to take over the responsibilities.  My last issue was Volume 25 Issue 3. In Volume 26 Issue 1, there were already glorious improvements to the magazine - a new cover format, new editorial board members, and vibrant issue themes. Yet, read a few sample sentences from her inaugural editor's column: "There is nothing more anxiety-inducing than trying to cram your feet into someone else's shoes. Consider the ugly stepsisters attempting to jam their clodhopper feet into a glass slipper meant for Cinderella. With their mother looming over them, the stepsisters felt a lot of pressure to snag that prince." Caroline didn't realize how important and crucial she was. She achieved more in her short stint as OSLA editor-in-chief than any other leader. She was the one who helped TingL  pivot to an online version and back again. It was under Caroline that there was better representation from more areas of school librarianship present on the editorial board and increased the number of contributors to each issue of the periodical. Volume 27 Issue 1 is a must-read for anyone wishing to understand the status of school libraries in Ontario, with the quantitative and qualitative data to back it up. This is part of the massive legacy she leaves. I haven't even touched on all the contributions she made to Canadian School Libraries. I'll leave that to others to document.

I searched my photo archives and I don't have a ton of photos of Caroline. This one comes from the 2019 OLA SuperConference. She was presenting with Anita Brooks-Kirkland on "Doing Data: A Fun and Innovative Way to Count What Matters". She made this topic so engaging to their audience and presented it all with her signature dry wit. 


Serendipity is funny sometimes. I was delighted to discover that one of my favourite people working with the TDSB Library and Learning Resources Department was Natalie, Caroline's daughter. She arranged the TDSB Reads Event in 2017 and I have to say, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Natalie is just as hard working and wonderful as her mother.


I've been writing this blog post on-and-off since Wednesday. Caroline's funeral was on Saturday, August 6 in Brantford. Beth Lyons, Kate Johnson-McGregor, Alanna King and I attended. It was a testimony to her to see how filled the church was with friends and family gathering to pay tribute to an extraordinary person. One of the final gifts Caroline gave to us, posthumously, was the reason for us to reconnect in-person. COVID and circumstances had separated us, but Caroline got many of us back together again.


Thanks Caroline; we will miss you.

PS These are just some of the heartfelt tweets shared online after news of Caroline's death.


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1 comment:

  1. Lisa NobleAugust 8, 2022 at 8:04 AM

    Thank you so much for this, dear friend. And I think Caroline would have been very happy to know the 4 of you gathered in her memory.

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