{"id":7144,"date":"2024-12-17T14:33:02","date_gmt":"2024-12-17T20:33:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/?p=7144"},"modified":"2024-12-17T14:33:03","modified_gmt":"2024-12-17T20:33:03","slug":"spotlight-sugar-durante","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/2024\/12\/17\/spotlight-sugar-durante\/","title":{"rendered":"Student employee spotlight: Charmirose \u201cSugar\u201d Durante"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Charmirose \u201cSugar\u201d Durante\u2019s journey to the Rita Benton Music Library at the University of Iowa began an ocean away in her home country of the Philippines. It was there that Durante first lifted a violin\u2019s bow and played the opening notes of a lifelong career. Years later, her passion for her instrument has brought her to the United States, where she earned a master\u2019s degree from Western Illinois University before coming to the University of Iowa to pursue a Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) in violin performance. And Durante is now entering her third year as a student library employee at the Music Library\u2019s circulation desk, a role she calls \u201ca big part of my life here in Iowa.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of Durante\u2019s favorite perks of her job is finding out about new materials the moment they join the Libraries\u2019 collections; many of these works are so new or rare that they are not yet available or accessible elsewhere. For a musician driven by curiosity, it\u2019s a gift to have the chance to explore these newly acquired scores. It\u2019s discoveries like this, \u201cthe broad scope of resources available to patrons,\u201d that characterizes the Music Library, according to Durante.<\/p>\n

Durante also places a premium on the time she\u2019s been able to spend working with the Music Library\u2019s full-time staff, including its director, Katie Buehner. With Buehner\u2019s help, she\u2019s been able to request materials that support her own scholarship, including hard-to-find transcriptions of Filipino folk songs, two of which have become part of Durante\u2019s repertoire.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a complicated process, but the scores got here,\u201d says Durante. \u201cAnd [Buehner is] very helpful in purchasing scores or books that students need in their studies, so the collection is continually growing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, work at the circulation desk has a significant interactive component, which has helped Durante build confidence. \u201cI\u2019m constantly talking to patrons,\u201d says Durante. And while Durante loves helping current students find scores, she also has a soft spot for returning alumni.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes alumni visit the library and ask to see their thesis or dissertation, and it is always great to see their happy faces when they find them,\u201d says Durante. \u201cThey often talk about their own experiences as students, and it is fun to listen to their stories.\u201d<\/p>\n

One case that charmed Durante recently involved an alumni couple who dropped by to view their theses. \u201cIt turned out that the husband\u2019s thesis was out on loan. He was so happy when he found out that someone had checked his thesis out and was actually reading it\u2014probably citing it, too. He kept repeating \u2018I\u2019m on loan!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Amy McBeth, a library assistant at the Music Library who works regularly with Durante, has high praise for her supervisee. \u201c[Durante] brings a great attitude, terrific dependability, and an exceptional work ethic to the Rita Benton Music Library,\u201d says McBeth.<\/p>\n

After she graduates, Durante hopes that her skills will take her into academia again, this time as an instructor. When that happens, she says she will take the lessons learned during her time at the Music Library and be as helpful to her students as her co-workers were to her.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Charmirose \u201cSugar\u201d Durante\u2019s journey to the Rita Benton Music Library at the University of Iowa began an ocean away in her home country of the Philippines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":331,"featured_media":7145,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[101,92],"syndication":[46,33,80,60],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7144"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/331"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7144"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7150,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7144\/revisions\/7150"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7144"},{"taxonomy":"syndication","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/syndication?post=7144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}