The librarian with the staring problem:
Ella G. Parmele, 1899

By the time Ella G. started in Oshkosh, the library had grown into a well-developed program. The facility had extended from one to three rooms located in the Normal School's third floor. In addition to the reference collection and main reading room, the library, at the time, included a textbook-lending collection and a special reading room of periodicals separately paid for by faculty and students. Throughout the building there were also separate reading rooms for the departments of history, literature and science. In addition to these collections, the library also oversaw a collection of 1,800 government publications, donated by Senator Philetus Sawyer and other officials. These were housed in a fourth floor room and were used widely for debates and reference. And over all of this, it is reported, Ella Parmele ran a tight ship. Accounts of Ella's deportment vary slightly in the brief staff biographies printed in the Quiver:

…from her lookout in the center of the reading room, [she] watches with eager eye lest some indolent student idly fritter away his time in idle gossip. (1904)

…Puzzle: Is it the nature of the school or an economy of time that forbids her gracious replies? (1908)

The students might have been more understanding of her austere manner. With a monthly salary of $70, Ella G. had a lot to be crabby about.