FACULTY
Librarian Turns the Last Page on a Storied Career
Richard Burnweit has served in Voskuyl Library as assistant director of learning resources and interlibrary loan manager for more than 50 years. He also taught an upper-division political science course, Congress and the Legislature, for 30 years, taking students to the annual Sacramento Legislative Seminar. They often competed for Capitol Fellowship internships, which could lead to permanent staff positions in the Senate and Assembly.
Richard majored in history at Claremont McKenna College, where he worked in the library before arriving at Westmont in 1973 to hire and train student staff at the circulation desk. He later earned a Master of Arts and A.B.D. in political science at UC Santa Barbara.
In the 1980s, he published a research biography, “Californians on Capitol Hill: The California state delegation in the U.S. House of Representatives, 1955 to present” and contributed biographical articles to Political Parties and Elections in the United States: An Encyclopedia and to Encyclopedia of the United States Congress.
Student researchers helped him develop an extensive biographical archive of California state officials, including all members of the state Senate, Assembly and U.S. Congress dating back to 1849. He donated this significant database to the Rose Institute for State and Local Government at his alma mater in 2005, and it will go online as part of the California Political History Archive. Find the “Burnweit Database” at ccdl.claremont.edu/digital/collection/ric.
Richard has watched media transform into IT, sophisticated online systems replace card catalogs, and the removal of walls, cubicles and shelves to welcome students to a new learning space in 2010.
“Throughout all these changes, I always enjoyed being at the center of life in the library, a campus destination both day and night for students and faculty,” he says.
His work in the circulation area and the classroom helped Richard make numerous close friendships, and he encouraged students and colleagues in their academic efforts. “As I see their accomplishments, I’m reminded that God has led me to this place and these friends, and we’re here for eternal purposes.”
In May, his cousin, Lauren Landa ’25, was the first member of his family to graduate from Westmont.
This is a story from the Spring 2025 Westmont Magazine