NEWS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Date: Contact: Nov. 15, 2013 Tricia Horn Communications & Marketing NSU-Broken Arrow 3100 E New Orleans Broken Arrow, OK 74014 918-449-6026 horn01@nsuok.edu

TOM RINK SHARES HIS ART COLLECTION WITH NSU

BROKEN ARROW, OK., Nov. 15, 2013- Every month NSU-Broken Arrow displays the works of local artists in the gallery of its Administration Building and this month one of its own is providing the artwork. Tom Rink, Instruction Librarian for NSUBA, will make available some of his extensive collection during the December exhibit.
Rink acquired his love of art from his father, Bernie Rink, who is also a collector. His father helped build an Inuit art collection for the Northwestern Michigan College while he was the library director there. As of result of his fathers work, the college opened the Dennos museum which houses the fruits of his efforts. After moving to Tulsa, Okla., in 1982 Rink fell in love with Native American art which is what he mainly collected early on, but his overall collection is quite eclectic. He has everything from oil to water color, charcoal to acrylic in his possession. His office in the library of the NSUBA campus is packed full of art wall-to-wall floor-to-ceiling, and at home there is more of the same. I have over 170 framed works of art in my 800-squar-foot-apartment, said Rink. Something you may not know about Rink is that he worked for the Tulsa Police Department for 25 years and jokingly refers to himself as The Gun Carryin Librarian. Rink already had a bachelors degree in criminal justice and after going through a b urnout stage as a police officer he took a career exploration class at TCC and librarian came back as the top choice. No surprise there because both of his parents are librarians. Rink then went back to school and got a masters in library information studies. How does one put drug money to good use? Well if you ask a librarian they will tell you to build a library which is exactly what Rink did. He was he was approached to develop a library for the police academy but since the TPD did not have a librarian position, he was made a policy writer and was told to developed the library in his spare time. His spare time was put to good use as he created the space planning analysis and put together the budget all on his own. He then

presented everything to his superiors and was denied funding. When the time came the next year to present the library idea again, TPD was cutting back and again denied funding. Discouraged, Rink later would read an article in the newspaper that quickly encouraged him. The police chief said the department had received $375,000 in drug forfeiture money and more specifically was quoted as saying Im not sure how were going to spend this. Rink quickly moved to get his library proposal up the chain of command and, voila! A library is born. Through his efforts in building and developing the police library Rink quickly became a fixture and a valuable source of information for the police department who then hired someone else to do policy writing so he could focus full time on the library I was doing everything, I was the director, I had to do cataloging, I had to do reference work, I was a one man operation, said Rink. Building a library from the ground up with no peers as police librarians to glean advice from was an experience that helps him in his current role with NSU. Some of his responsibilities include information literacy, bibliographic instruction, presentations on how to use library resources, and he also works with professors to ensure the library has the books and academic resources to support their classes. The event that fueled Rink to become an avid collector was a gift his parents gave him when he graduated from Michigan State University. They presented him his first piece of art, an Inuit print. Its called Protecting Circle and it features musk oxen--which are similar to bison--in a protective circle. The American bison is his favorite animal which is one of the reasons he loves Native American art. One simply does not stop buying art because one has no more wall space, said Rink reciting his favorite quote. The exhibit will feature Native American art collected by Tom Rink. It will be available for viewing Monday- Friday 8:30 a.m. 8 p.m. and is located at the NSUBA Administration Building Gallery, 3100 East New Orleans Broken Arrow, OK. 74014. This exhibit is free and open to the public. For more information, call or email Tricia Horn at 918-449-6026 or

horn01@nsuok.edu.