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About George

I am a librarian at Harvard University. I work in cluster of libraries that includes Lamont Library, Cabot Science Library, Widener Library, and the Harvard Map Collection.  I help people with questions related to the environment, sustainability, government publications, maps, and general research.

Lamont Library, Harvard Yard, Cambridge, MA 02138

Research Questions: enviro@fas.harvard.edu

Other Email: clark5@fas.harvard.edu

Librarian

As a research librarian at Harvard since 2001, I provide help to scholars from throughout the university and beyond. I handle both general reference questions and more specialized questions in environment and sustainability studies, including their overlap with government documents, data, and maps. I have also served as the interim manager of Government Information Services and the U.S. Federal Depository Library Coordinator at Harvard.

Geographer and Writer

I write on environment, sustainability, the arts, and other topics. In addition to scholarly publications, my print work has appeared in publications such as Environment, where I was a contributing editor for three years, and in The Resource, the internal human resources newspaper for Harvard University.

Actor

I have a master’s degree (2022) in drama from Harvard Extension. I also took courses in theater and improv at Earlham College. In film, I played the bad guy in Nick Young’s Harvard College thesis short, Punch Brother. I appeared as a reporter in the background of the Keira Knightley film Boston Strangler. On TV, I have appeared as an extra in Succession, Law & Order (the original series), Law & Order: SVU, Early Edition, Defending Jacob, and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Recently, I worked on FBI: Most Wanted, and a spinoff of a series that was very popular in the early aughts. Member, SAG-AFTRA. Details here.

Background

Previously, I worked for the United States Environmental Protection Agency in Chicago; as a watershed management consultant to the Massachusetts Metropolitan Distriction Commission (now the state Department of Conservation and Recreation); as a visiting instructor at Mt. Holyoke College; and as a library assistant at MIT’s Lindgren Library of earth, atmospheric, and planetary sciences, since closed.

I grew up in northern Virginia, and my family hails from Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. I live west of Boston about halfway to Worcester. I am a ham radio operator, callsign W1XW.

Education

B.A., Earlham College, Geology.

Senior independent study in geophysics on depth to bedrock in Wayne Co., IN. Coursework also in Peace and Global Studies, Acting, Improv. Semester abroad in Jerusalem.

M.A., University of Chicago, Geography.

Master’s paper on the influence of American David Lilienthal (TVA and AEC) on transnational managment of the Indus river basin in India and Pakistan. Advisor: James Wescoat.

Ph.D., Clark University, Geography.

Concentration in the social vulnerability and resilience aspects of water resources and environmental problems. Studied in the hazards tradition of geography begun by Gilbert F. White. Dissertation: Vulnerability to Coastal Flood Hazards in Revere, Massachusetts: A Social Component of Risk. See HOLLIS Catalog or Proquest Dissertations & Theses Full Text (Harvard link). Advisor: Samuel Ratick. Committee: Roger Kasperson, Harry Schwarz, James Wescoat, and Robert Mitchell.

M.S., Simmons University, Library and Information Science.

Studied reference librarianship with ferrier Allen Smith. He had many sayings. The one that I remember most is that we should strive for “total bibliographic control.” He hated exclamation points, but he probably deserves one.

M.L.A., Harvard Extension School, Drama.

Master of Liberal Arts. Studied acting, Shakespeare, and writing for the stage and screen. Thesis in theater history: Stepping to the National Stage: Protesting Injustice, Producing Shakespeare, and Claiming Black Space at the Sylvan Theater. Thesis advisor: Prof. Derek Miller.

“Bytes of Note” Columns in Environment

Additional Publications

  • Reviews:
  • 2012. Review of P. P. Karan and S. P. Subbiah, eds., 2011, The Indian Ocean Tsunami: The Global Response to a Natural Disaster, Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky. Journal of Geography 111(3), pp. 123-124. (Harvard link.)
  • 2008. “Making Climate News.” Review of M. T. Boykoff and J. M. Boykoff, 2007, “Climate Change and Journalistic Norms: A Case Study of US Mass-Media Coverage,” Geoforum 38(6), 1190–04; and M. T. Boykoff, 2008, “Lost in Translation? United States Television News Coverage of Anthropogenic Climate Change, 1995—2004,” Climatic Change 86(1-2), 1–11. In “Editors’ Picks,” Environment 50(4), pp. 3-4.
  • 2008. Review of C. Park, 2007, Dictionary of Environment and Conservation, Oxford University Press. In “Books of Note,” Environment 50(4), pp. 66-67.
  • 2007. “Environment and Conservation.” In C. LaGuardia, ed., Magazines for Libraries, 16th ed. New Providence, NJ.: ProQuest LLC, pp. 376-382. M2007. “Television, Video, and Radio.” In C. LaGuardia, ed., Magazines for Libraries, 16th ed. New Providence, NJ.: ProQuest LLC, pp. 920-924.
  • 2006. Review of W. R. Hofstra, The Planting of New Virginia: Settlement and Landscape in the Shenandoah Valley, 2004, Johns Hopkins University Press. In Journal of Cultural Geography 23(2), 134-136. (Harvard link.)
  • 2005. “Environment and Conservation.” In C. LaGuardia, ed., Magazines for Libraries, 14th ed. New Providence, NJ.: Bowker, 417-422. Chapter completely revised for 14th edition.
  • 2003. “Environment and Conservation.” In C. LaGuardia, ed., Magazines for Libraries, 12th ed. New Providence, NJ.: Bowker, 422-429.
  • 2002. Review of International Bibliography of Maps and Atlases, 2nd ed. K.G. Saur. In Library Journal 127 (7), “Database & Disc Reviews,” 134-135. (Harvard link.)