Meet Robb Hyde, a circulation assistant who has been employed at RPL since 2024, but who has been haunting the stacks at RPL since the late 1970s.
Here are some things to know about Robb:
What is your favorite part about your job?
All the great folks … those I work with and the patrons we help.
What is your favorite book or who is your favorite author?
Outside Lies Magic: Regaining History and Awareness in Everyday Places by John Stilgoe.
My favorite author is Doris Kearns Goodwin, who I met in 1995.
What is your favorite TV show or movie?
Movie … so many, but today I’ll say After Hours, the great Martin Scorsese comedy. TV … also hard, except that both The Expanse and Band of Brothers require a complete rewatch every couple of years.
What was your favorite subject in school?
When I was in school it was media and marketing, since retiring it has been history.
Who is your favorite musical artist?
The Name of the Band is Talking Heads, so Stop Making Sense
Are you a big fan of any professional sports teams?
I am (sadly for more than a few decades now) a life-long Pittsburgh Pirates fan.
Do you have any pets?
The wonderful Molly, a Newfoundland-Collie-St. Bernard mix.
What is something people would be surprised to know about you?
I was once a singing and sword-fighting pirate at Pittsburgh’s Civic Light Opera
What are three words that describe you?
Dazed and confused
Do you have a favorite saying or motto you try to live by?
This is long but I had it by my desk for over twenty years:
“Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in - Forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. Begin it well and serenely and with too high spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense. This day is all that is good and fair. It is too clear, with it's hopes and invitations, to waste a moment on yesterdays.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
Who was/is the biggest influence/hero in your life?
My father, my grandfather and my uncle Andy … exceptional men all.
What was your first car?
A dark green, fake-wood-paneled 1970 Ford Country Squire station wagon gifted to me for my 21st birthday by my parents.
What super power would you like to have?
I would surely enjoy non-invasive time travel, but if my dreams are any indication, I want to stride just fast enough to glide a foot or two off the ground.
What would be the title to your autobiography?
How to Meander and Bumble to The Good Life
If you could be in any fictional universe what would it be?
I’d like a universe mashup where I could live in Cicely, Alaska of Northern Exposure and the political world of The West Wing.