When David Carter was a student at UM in the late 1980s, he took a job at the technical library.
He was studying engineering at the time and the job at the library allowed him to pay for the comic books he had collected.
“Unbeknownst to me, that (library) job set my career on a very different path,” he said.
The path has led Carter to his current position as video game archivist for the computer and video game archive and comic book librarian – something that combines two childhood loves into a fulfilling career.
“I was a kid in the 70’s and 80’s in the suburbs of Pontiac. What else was I supposed to do?” he asked jokingly. “I never thought you would make such things your profession. I always say that 12-year-old Dave would be very impressed with what Dave was up to in his fifties.”
Carter’s exposure to and passion for computers began, oddly enough, by taking piano lessons. As teenagers, he and his sister took classes from a family friend, and while his sister did her class, Carter was allowed to use that family’s Apple II computer.
Although he initially only played games like “Lemonade Stand” on the console, he became intrigued by programming, looked at the accompanying Apple manual and taught himself to code.
His interest in and love for comics and comic books started earlier. Carter was in love with the Peanuts comic and had a copy of “Good Ol’ Charlie Brown” — a collection of several hundred comics published between 1955-57 — that he read so often that it was reduced to shreds.
He has a reprint of that book and the entire 26-volume collection of “The Complete Peanuts,” hardcover books of the series since the first comic was published in 1950 until the last in 2000.
“I had a stuffed Snoopy, I watched all the Peanuts cartoons on TV, like ‘Charlie Brown Christmas,'” he said. “Peanuts was probably my first comic book love as far as that goes.”
He was soon drawn to superhero-based comics after seeing “Super Friends” on television and his father buying him three comic books while he was sick in bed. One of the three books was a Superman comic, which inspired his uniqname – superman – when he was a student at UM.
“I got that in 1989. They said pick something you’ll remember and it should be eight characters or less, not knowing it would be added to email and follow me all my career,” said he. “It was a little embarrassing when I tried to look for a job coming out of graduate school, but I’m no longer ashamed of it because it kind of fits my job and it’s very memorable. No one ever forgets my email address.”
Not very picky about the comics he reads — Carter said he likes “comics for their comedicity” — he ended up amassed a collection of over 40,000 books.
He has somewhat reduced the collection, but still has to use a storage cabinet to hold most of his books.
“I’m trying to get rid of them, but I can’t just get rid of them because that’s like chopping off an arm, even though I know I’ll never read 95% of them again,” he said. “Some have sentimental value, some I might read again, some I haven’t read yet, and then some I just need to get rid of for some reason. But they keep making new ones.
“I’m trying to break the collector mentality, but it’s hard to do.”
Carter has no comparable collection of video games. He even has a PlayStation 3 game console, but only a handful of games that he rarely plays. When he has the urge to play a video game, he tends to race or music themed games or abstract shooting games, such as “Geometry Wars” or “Asteroids.”
“So I like driving things, pretending to be a rock star and shooting blobs,” he said.
By pretending to be a rock star, Carter goes back to his days playing bass in a number of garage bands. He said he only had one paying gig during his playing days, so a music career was unlikely. Several years before the COVID-19 pandemic, he sang with the Ann Arbor Civic Chorus, but has yet to return to the group.
“Maybe someday,” he said. “Music was always something I loved.”
His other interest in gaming stems from his time as a student at UM living in Bursley Hall, which had a small arcade with pinball machines. After dinner in the cafeteria, Carter and his roommates and friends spent about an hour in the arcade playing pinball.
“It was every day, so after four years I got pretty good at pinball,” he said. “In Kalamazoo there is a ‘Pinball at the Zoo’ thing where collectors bring in their pinball machines, you pay $17 and you can play pinball all day. Before the pandemic, I’d meet up with some college friends and we’d get together in Kalamazoo and play pinball.
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“I’m still not bad. I may not have the exact skills I had when I was playing every day, but it’s like riding a bike.”
When the urge to play a video game strikes, Carter can always launch one of the thousands of games for the 70 game systems available in the Computer and Video Game Archive. The CVGA reopened in late August in its new home on the fourth floor of the Shapiro Library after a three-month move from the basement of the Duderstadt Library on the North campus.
Carter said the move was motivated in part by feedback from a review report indicating that the majority of the CVGA’s use and potential use was in LSA. Preserving old video game consoles is important, he said, in understanding the history of our culture.
While many online archives focus on emulating game systems, the CVGA is more focused on preserving the original games and consoles.
“Playing an emulated Nintendo game on your computer keyboard isn’t the same as playing a real Nintendo with that little square controller on a 1982 cathode ray tube television, which is an experience we can bring to people,” he said.
Question and answer
What memorable moment in the workplace stands out?
So many, but probably one of the many classroom sessions in the CVGA where the students were tasked with playing games on systems they haven’t played before.
What can you not live without?
Well, food, water and shelter of course; but for this question and answer i say ice cream. And comic books.
Name your favorite place on campus.
Love the tech fountain and reflecting pool at North Campus.
What inspires you?
Helping people find information. Show them an information tool that they didn’t know existed and that will make their scientific life easier. That’s what we librarians live for!
What are you currently reading?
“Game Wizards: The Epic Battle for Dungeons & Dragons” by Jon Peterson and “The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue” by VE Schwab
Who had the biggest influence on your career path?
Probably Jim Ottaviani and Joe Janes, both of whom showed me non-traditional paths to libraries and guided me in my early career.
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