From The
Davis Enterprise
Monday, August 8, 2005
Retired longtime UC Davis librarian serves as nature docent
By Jeff Hudson/Enterprise staff writer
Chat with Kate Mawdsley, and you're conversing with a woman who knows a lot about university libraries - but also has a keen interest in native California plants, tadpole shrimp that live in Central Valley vernal pools, and many other topics.
Mawdsley came to Davis, as the wife of a Sacramento State professor, in 1965.
"It was culture shock. We arrived in Davis on Admission Day, and I didn't know it was a holiday," she said. "I didn't know that you couldn't buy a mattress in Davis on Admission Day because the dry goods store was closed."
There were other surprises. "We had come from a university campus of 40,000 people, in a city that was much larger, to a town of just under 20,000 people."
Like many a transplant from the eastern half of the country, some of the shock had to do with encountering a natural world that didn't behave like the one she'd grown up in.
"I spent all fall waiting for the leaves to turn color and fall off the trees," Mawdsley recalled. It never really happened. "You know the sycamores that were in the library courtyard? The leaves got waterlogged and fell off in December - plop!"
Mawdsley came to Davis with a "newly minted" master's degree in library science from the University of Minnesota. And she got lucky in this regard. The librarian at UC Davis phoned the library program back in Minnesota, and Mawdsley promptly got a job offer.
She started working in government publications. "But I took time out to have two kids," she said. And while she was expecting, "I resigned, as mothers-to-be did in those days. I went back to work part-time between the two kids." A boy, Justin, was born in 1969, followed by a girl, Ellen, in 1971.
Mawdsley recalls she went "back to work (at the university library) for good in the fall of 1972." She became the head of the government documents department, and then in 1982 became the head of public services for the library, with responsibilities covering the reference and circulation departments - "all the functions people come into contact with when they come into the library."
As a result, "I lived through the transition from the card catalog to computers."
(A word for readers under 25, who may have never seen a card catalog: In the days before computers, libraries carefully maintained drawers and drawers filled with little cards, each card containing the description and catalog number of a book. Sometimes you had to wait to look up information in the card catalog, because another person was using the drawer you needed. And you had to go to the library to use the card catalog, you couldn't look up information online from home, as you can now.)
"The transition from card catalog to computers was a very long transition at Davis. We were sensitive to people - read 'faculty' - who were very attached to the card catalog. In 1976 or '77, the effort had really begun to create union catalog, now the Melvyl system, which went live several years after that. In comparison to what we have now, it was pretty clunky. But at the time, it was remarkable."
Librarians also got computers at their desks. "My first computer was a Fat Mac, in the early '90s. It had no hard drive at all. Everything was stored on floppies." And Mawdsley means real 5-inch floppies (which have now all but disappeared), not 3.5 inch diskettes.
Mawdsley retired from the University Library in 1993. "I went back and volunteered for several years." But the technology in the library kept changing. "It was nearly obsolete in less than five years, because of the increasing availability of new resources."
Became nature volunteer
When she retired, Mawdsley began devoting more time to another subject that had interested her for years.
"I had rekindled an interest in wildflowers, which I would now call native plants, in the late '70s and early '80s. I started getting out and exploring more in California."
Mawdsley became active with the herbarium at UC Davis, where she's now an enthusiastic, year-round volunteer. "I'll botanize with anybody, anytime, practically," she confesses. And she goes with groups to various other herbariums and nature preserves.
She started visiting Jepson Prairie in Solano County, and began training as a docent in 1987. She eventually became the coordinator of the docent program.
What makes Jepson special? "Jepson Prairie is a preserve that protects one of the largest intact grasslands in this part of the Central Valley," Mawdsley said.
"It still has a lot of native grasses. And it has vernal pools - pools ranging from very large to very small - that preserve a unique assemblage of flora and fauna. Vernal pools used to be widespread in the valley and the foothills. But with development post-WWII, most of that land turned to other uses. And once land has been 'deep-ripped' " - by deep plowing or grading, which loosens up the soil - "it no longer has the clay layer that traps the water (on the surface) and creates conditions for fairy shrimp and tadpole shrimp and hundreds of thousands of tiny flowers in spring."
"Jepson Prairie has one very large vernal pool, which we call a 'playa pool,' which can be acres in extent in wet years. The essential thing to understand about vernal pools is that they form as a result of cool winter rainfall on flat terrain. Because of the clay substrate" - a layer in the soil which keeps the water on the surface - "water collects."
The vernal pools that form in winter and spring teem with life for a period of weeks. "The water is home to crustaceans, and plants that have germinated simply hang out in the water until spring, when the water evaporates, because there's more sunshine, longer days, warmer temperatures, and prevailing winds (that cause the water to evaporate). So the smaller pools may be dry in March or April. This year, because there was so much rain, there were still pools in late April, and the larger pools lingered into May or even June." As the pools dried out, there were spectacular displays of native wildflowers.
The plants and animals that live in vernal pools have to adapt to the hot, bone dry conditions of summer. "We have some beautiful lilies that survive (in the soil) as bulbs. The leaves and flowers dry up and decompose. The fairy shrimp and tadpole shrimp survive as cysts. The tiger salamander larvae go into gopher burrows and survive underground. Everything has to find a way to survive the dry season."
Mawdsley's work as a Jepson Prairie docent is decidedly seasonal. And she's always looking for new docents to help with visiting groups of junior high and high school science students.
"It's basically a three-month commitment," Mawdsley said. "We do the training in February, and tours from March until the black gnats come up in May. When the gnats are biting, it's not fun to be out there. The docents are like the other ephemeral residents of Jepson Prairie. We are there when the critters are 'live' and the flowers are blooming. Once the prairie starts to aestivate, or go into the summer resting period, we take off and find our flowers in other places."
For information about Jepson Prairie, call the Solano Land Trust at (707) 432-0150. For information about volunteering as a docent, contact Mawdsley at (530) 758-5093.
- Reach Jeff Hudson at jhudson@davisenterprise.net or 747-8055.