WAML Member of the Month: Riley Moffat

Where did you go to college?

I have a BS in business administration from BYU-Hawaii, MLS from the University of Hawaii, and MS from BYU-Provo in geography/cartography.

Tell us what your job at the BYU-Hawaii campus encompasses.

As Head of Reference I'm responsible for all reference services, bibliographic instruction, collection development and assessment, library web-page development, special collections (our Pacific Islands Room) and ... maps. Then there's my side jobs of teaching surfing and Pacific geography.

Where was your first job working with maps? 

BYU in Provo. I was the first full time person there with that assignment. "Maps" was the magic word to get me to come back to America from Tonga. So 10 years full time with maps in Provo then 20 years very part time here in Hawaii.

What were you doing in Tonga?

My first job out of library school at UH was running the library system for the LDS Church schools in Tonga. We have 2 secondary schools and 11 middle schools in the Kingdom. It included a bookmobile on the main island and boat boxes for the outer islands. The surf was great but there was never anyone to go with back then. I also got to design secondary school libraries for our schools in Fiji, Samoa, and Kiribati.

Do you have a favorite map?   

Not particularly; but I like certain styles, often ones that look like they come from copper plate engraving. With computerized cartography it's not hard to make an eye pleasing map these days.

Do you ever use maps to locate good surfing spots, and if so, what
kind of maps?

Large scale nautical charts are excellent for researching possible surf possibilities. So are USGS topos when they include bathymetric contours. Unfortunately the latest editions of Hawaii topos dropped them. Must be a homeland security thing?

I think Franko's are the best on the market. My son, who was a contest surfer, got a degree in GIS and now works for NGA, and I were going to make one up for the North Shore but just when we were gathering our material a few years ago we saw Franko beat us to it. I went ahead and made one up anyway that I give out to people who ask. But we always keep a few 'secret spots' to ourselves.

What’s the most fun you ever had at a WAML conference?

Probably when the conferences Mabel, Ross and I organized in Hawaii in 1992 and 2002 seemed to work out and everyone was having fun, especially at Kilauea volcano. Also the one we had in Provo in 1987 and we bumped into Robert Redford at dinner.

What do you like to do when you aren’t being a map librarian?

Surf, hang out with the family and write.

What book(s) are you reading these days?   

With work, surf and family I don't seem to have much time to just sit and read. But I do seem to keep up with Surfer's Journal and Newsweek regularly. Over Christmas I read Memoirs of a Geisha. I like things that take me back to another time and/or place.

What is your least favorite thing to do at work?   

Strategic planning meetings and reports.

And what's your favorite thing to do at work? 

Actually helping people find things, especially if it has to do with maps and atlases.