Librarians are some of the most interesting people I know, each with a unique story about how they came to librarianship and the impact they’re making on their community. I started this series interviewing school librarians:
But librarians of all types have a lot to learn from each other. Today I have the honor of sharing the library journey of someone who’s worked in both school and public libraries.
Meet Katy! She currently serves as a Collection Development Librarian for Wake County Public Libraries in North Carolina. But she didn’t start her career as a librarian. Katy graduated with a degree in elementary education and taught fifth grade for two years at a K-8 school. Katy’s favorite part of the job was developing her students’ love of reading. “I enjoyed introducing kids to new books,” Katy explains, “but I felt like there was teaching to the test, and the fun for myself and the children was sucked out. How was I going to make reading fun? When I did try, I was told not to.” During this time, Katy developed a strong connection with the school librarian. In Katy’s third year, the librarian left and encouraged Katy to apply. “The Friday before Labor day my principal told me I had the job, and the social worker would be subbing my 5th grade class so I could work with the sub in the library, as it was her last day,” Katy recalls. “I got thrown in real quick.”
In her new role, Katy loved sharing her passion for reading with students but grew frustrated with the lack of administrative support and understanding of her role: “If students were not in front of me, I ‘wasn’t working.’ I had no support staff, just volunteers. I would regularly stay til 2 or 3 in the morning on Fridays. I also had to fix copiers and serve as tech support for the school. I loved when I could do the collection development, but it wasn’t a sustainable job because of admin’s point of view.”
After two years as a school librarian, Katy took a children’s librarian job at a public library closer to home. She was hired right before summer reading - trial by fire again! Katy served as the children’s and teen for two years. Like so many librarians, Katy wanted to preserve her library’s community and level of service, so she became branch manager on top of being the children’s librarian for two years.
Being branch manager and children’s library was a recipe for burnout, so when Katy’s husband’s job required the family to relocate, Katy was grateful to leave her manager role behind for a job as a preschool librarian in Raleigh, where she worked for several years until the pandemic, when an opportunity arose to be the youth services manager. “I was reluctant to go into management again,” Katy shared, “but it was a good opportunity. I enjoyed the library and working with the staff but learned the hard lesson that management was not for me.”
Katy felt stuck in this new role, but just as in the past, opportunity was right around the corner. Despite her stints in management, Katy “never left the kid-lit world… The children’s selector for the library system was going to retire. I’d just moved into this management job but that’s the job I’d always wanted. Through encouragement from others, I applied and got that role, which I’ve been in for almost 3 years.” And she couldn’t be happier.
Katy’s story is full of jumps but also opportunity. Her biggest lesson from her experience and biggest piece of advice to other librarians is “don’t feel like you’re locked in. Don’t feel like you can’t take a chance on anything. If you feel like it’s a good fit and you’re interested, try it! I wouldn’t be in my job, which I love a whole lot, unless I took the risks of jumping around.”
So - what does a collection development librarian do, exactly?
Katy is in charge of purchasing children’s books for all branches in her county - juvenile fiction, nonfiction, picture books, beginning readers, and board books. She also purchases e-content for those collections. To stay organized, Katy operates on a monthly cycle, ordering for each collection once per month (once for fiction, once for picture, etc.). “This job is a lot of reports and math,” Katy says. Between running hold-to-copy ratio reports, attending webinars, and reading reviews, Katy builds carts for each collection that reflects books that will come out in the next three months or any reordering that needs to be done. She also keeps an older cart of “nice to haves,” since she’s constantly weeding her “dream cart” to match budget realities. She orders eBooks and eAudiobooks every week. She shares cataloging responsibilities with the rest of her collection development team.
As a collection development librarian in a red state, censorship is on Katy’s mind. “Since we’re in the capitol, we’re a blue county. We do deal with requests for reconsideration, but challengers have to physically come into a branch and fill out an application that comes with the ALA Bill of Rights.” Katy always serves on the committees for books in her collection. Usually the committee receives no response or a disappointed response from the challenger once they are notified of the committee’s decision.
One of the things Katy loves about her new role is the time she can dedicate to learning about new books, something she didn’t have as a school librarian. “I really wish there was time for in-service days where public librarians could do book talks, look at the curriculum and make suggestions,” Katy says. “I think PL could be a good resource for librarians who don’t have time. It could help inform me, too. I would love to sit with the curriculum person to look at what we already have on the shelves that matches the curriculum or think about what I can add to the collection so we have more books on curricular topics ahead of time instead of waiting to see the demand.” Katy sees this kind of collaboration as an opportunity to supplement school library resources, as schools in her state are not getting the funding they need.
While Katy’s position is not public-facing, her favorite thing about libraries is still “the sheer joy of going in with zero expectations and coming out with anything you want out of the trip. Especially with public libraries. “I don’t know what a patron wants but I’m going to help them find it and leave happy. It’s not a transaction that’s going to cost you anything. It’s one of the few spaces where you can make it what you want it to be.”
Katy will be spreading more library joy this fall in her upcoming Substack, TLDR Kidlit Reviews. These quick, 2-4 sentence reviews will offer a synopsis but also suitability for storytime, curriculum units, etc. Her goals are sharing good books and helping books find their readers.
And what’s Katy reading now?
Checking out,
Jennie 🧡
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