Starr Qualities

The territory of Alta California, a network of scattered settlements on the lower edge of an empty American West, had a number of visitors during the Spanish and Mexican period.

With that modest sentence, Kevin Starr began his monumental history of California. Volume I, “Americans and the California Dream 1850-1915,” was published by Oxford University Press in 1973. The work now stands at six volumes, through World War II. More are coming.

But Starr now has left his “day job,” the most publicly visible position of a distinguished career, as California state librarian. He resigned after 10 years to spend more time teaching history at USC and, of course, to continue to define California for the world. His departure from Sacramento earlier this month leaves a huge void. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger should seek a successor worthy of Starr and not use the position as a political reward.

Starr, 63, a University of San Francisco, UC Berkeley and Harvard man, is learned, witty, urbane, well-spoken and a gentleman who never came to work without a necktie. He also is a man of the people of California, who has sought to bring history alive and offer useful information to all. He started a program of volunteers to read the news daily to the blind over a toll-free telephone line. He insisted that plaques outside the Capitol celebrate California’s Spanish and Mexican heritage, as well as the paler immigrants from parts east. He welcomed the diversity of students jamming the public schools, calling it California’s “internationalist destiny.”

As state librarian, Starr did far more than just oversee the state library in Sacramento serving the Legislature and state agencies. He was responsible for administering state and federal programs to local libraries. As such, he worked to serve the underserved, even in the most remote parts of the state. He also oversaw the distribution of $350 million in library-construction bond funds approved by voters in 2000. He has written regularly in The Times’ Opinion section about topics ranging from the cultural makeup of California to the Gray Davis recall election. And he was active in selecting the design for the forthcoming state quarter. Schwarzenegger appropriately named Starr the state librarian emeritus. The state library reached unprecedented visibility and prestige during his tenure.

Starr’s greatest legacy, however, will be his history of California. To be able to write it and tell it as he does, Starr imagines the California dream just as richly and grandly as those he writes about.