Alumni Highlight: Staff Sergeant Philip Espe, MS Library Science, 2022
What kind of library career combines a passion for theatrical performance and conducting, experience in cataloging and archiving, and a background as a clarinetist? It is the career that Philip Espe started this past year as the Marine Band Ensemble Librarian. In this role, he searches for pieces requested by the Marine Band Director in the largest U.S. performance library to find the music, purchase the music, and prepare the music for its most efficient use. His goal is always to provide the highest quality music reading experience possible for the performers in the Marine Band, whom you may have heard play at the White House at some point before. However, you won’t have seen Philip because as he says, “his work is done best when he is invisible.”
Philip has a diverse background of experience in libraries. He was known as the “Storytime Guy” in Washington D.C. when he worked as the Youth Services Librarian for the public library. He has also worked in special collections, and he loved curating the community archives. Philip says it’s a wonder to put his hands on an archive and “feel the joy that can be found in ordinary objects.”
Philip Espe was already working in libraries when COVID hit and he decided to go back to school to achieve the credential of Master of Science in Library Science. The UNT online program provided him with the credential to have more authority in the library and more influence over how the library works, but it also gave him the confidence to trust his intuition. He remembers a three-course archive sequence taught by Morgan Gieringer of the UNT Libraries. He says that he, “appreciated learning how she curated materials to help us understand how people address different problems in society.” He also found the cataloging courses and information organization courses extremely helpful for giving him the confidence to jump right in and administrate the huge database that he finds himself working in now.
The Marines will be celebrating their 225th anniversary this year, and he looks forward to contributing to their story and history through the work he supports in the National Museum of the Marine Corps. We also look forward to hearing more about Philip Espe’s unique position helping to support and build a community by protecting important and interesting information within the Marine Corps.