Director Gwen Harrison of Springfield's Lincoln Library shares her love of books and the variety of resources at our public libraries.
Transcripted by AI with human editing for readability.
Bea Bonner:
Hello there. My name is Bea Bonner and you're listening to Community Voices on NPR Illinois. Today I am talking to Gwen Harrison, the director of the Lincoln Library. Thank you so much for joining me today.
Gwen Harrison:
Hello, Bea. I am so excited to be here with you today and talk about what I love most, libraries.
Bea Bonner:
I'm excited. I grew up right next to a regional branch in Chicago, the Carter G. Woodson Library.
Gwen Harrison:
How lucky you were to have a A neighborhood library.
Bea Bonner:
Yeah, because some people don't.
Gwen Harrison:
I grew up with a neighborhood library. It was the South Branch. It was my place to go and escape. I would go there and sit in the children's room on the little small, short green benches and just lose myself. It smelled musty back there, library-like. Whenever I think about that, the first thing I do is I think of the smell.
Bea Bonner:
You must be used to it because I know you spent most of your career working in the library realm. I'm guessing you are from Springfield, though.
Gwen Harrison:
I am born and bred.
Bea Bonner:
Did you go to high school in Springfield too?
Gwen Harrison:
I did. I went away to college. I ended right back here in Springfield.
Bea Bonner:
As a teenager, you spent your first job working at the Lincoln Library. A full circle moment for you. What was that experience like that ended up leading you to the field?
Gwen Harrison:
The reason why I ended up at Lincoln Library was because my sister was initially hired to work at the West Branch Library, which was on West Washington Street. When she came home and said she had a job at West Branch as a page, I thought, "Well, my goodness, they must be open to hiring people of color, young people of color. I thought I just might have a chance. I went and I applied, Carl Volkman interviewed me, and I got the call back. He offered me the job. It was an experimental position. It was the first time they had hired a teenager to work the circulation desk. I never did shelve books while I was here. It gave me a bird's eye view of the community, of customer service, of meeting people at their point of need. Where do they need to go in the library to get different services? Directing them to where different programs are being held at the library. It met me where I'm at personally. It helped me to discover some of the things that I like. I'm all about customer service and trying to meet our customers at their point of need. It was a perfect marriage for me.
After that, I went away to college. I went to Illinois State University. Go Redbirds! I wanted to be a computer scientist. My first semester there, I did not do well, and I got scared, so I had a back pocket plan. If this doesn't work out for me, I'm going to fall back on library science, and that's what I did. In going to school, and then after that, going to get my master's degree, I came full circle regarding computer science because with my graduate degree, there was a hefty amount of work regarding learning HTML and putting memory into computers, taking a computer apart and installing the motherboard. I came full circle with my computer science experience. It's important to have that background because a lot of times you need to understand what's underneath the hood as you're dealing with vendors and making decisions on all of the things that affect you electronically in this world as well.
Bea Bonner:
My first time using a computer was at my neighborhood library.
Gwen Harrison:
Oh, yes. Years ago, Bill Gates did a program, he loves libraries. He did a grant program where we had an Apple IIe computer that we had at our branch library, and we sat down and we did programming with children that signed up to learn about whatever we were taking them through. I would sit there, and I would introduce young people to the computer. We would do enrichment exercises on whatever their parents felt they needed some help in. I did this one summer and it was wonderful. I remember taking the computer out to places where teenagers were to help them gain familiarity with using the computers and helping them with education areas. For example, if they needed to be shored up in reading or English or math, we had a series of programs that we could run them through. So we did that.
You fast forward, and I'm sitting at a place that I like to exercise at. I'm in the sauna, and there's a woman there that recognizes me. She said, "Are you Gwen?" I'm,"Yes." She said, "Years ago, I brought my grandson to the library. You had this Apple IIe program, and you sat down and you introduced him to the computer, and you took him through these series of lessons. I want you to know that you ignited a fire in my grandson. Today he is a computer scientist because of those experiences that he had at the library." You never know how you may touch a life in this profession. It was good to hear this. I was, "You've got to be kidding me." She said, "No, because you sat down and you explained things and you were gentle, you were kind, you led him through it. You ignited a fire in him." You never know how this profession may spur the people that you meet to go to higher heights in their lives as well. That's a good story.
Bea Bonner:
People think of the library as the place I go get books or that's the place I go do homework. But it just shows what a role the library plays in the community. Gwen, I was wondering what misconceptions do you think people have about working at a library or being a librarian in general?
Gwen Harrison:
Oftentimes, they think that librarians are stuffy, prim and proper. That's not true of today's modern librarians. They've got special libraries, public libraries, academic libraries, and school libraries. You find a medley of people that work in these professions. We're not cookie cutter. You have people of all ages, of all interests, of all backgrounds. As a result of that, it makes the programming that you have at your library even more interesting because you have people that have these interests. Oftentimes, the things that we do are reflecting the things that my staff, my team, they're interested in. That's what makes it such a kaleidoscope of beautiful programming ideas. As long as you're open to it, I say let's make it happen. Let's see what happens when my team approaches me with different ideas of things that they would like to do. It's really important. Right now we are going through a community survey process for our strategic planning. It's really important for us to listen to our community and listen to our stakeholders. But we're not just doing things that we think people need to be exposed to. We're going to be doing things with the strategic plan results in mind as we go forward. It's important that we bring our creativity to the table, but I also think it's important that we have our finger on the pulse when it comes to what exactly our community would like to see in their life.
Bea Bonner:
Growing up at my library, they always had kids' programs. We could come in and hear an author read their book. They had coloring days, teaching us how how to use the computer, but I'm seeing more and more, a lot of libraries are doing more geared towards adults. What has happened with the innovation and the evolution of adult programming in libraries?
Gwen Harrison:
It's a reflection on my staff. They are very aware of what's going on in our world. They create classes that will help people get a better understanding of the world that we live in. They put together programming, bring in interesting speakers, crafts. They see what's going on in our community and then try to piggyback off of that in terms of what we bring forth in terms of the programs that we offer.
I have a personal interest in programming. I would like to do a director's series. Iin my series, I would love to emphasize the arts and also physical movement. These are things that are near and dear to my heart. I would like to have jazz concerts; a person come in and show us how to create small plates on a budget. I'd like to have someone come in and demonstrate dance. Maybe have someone come in and teach Tai Chi. I would like to do a program like this every three or four months. And also, some of the more traditional things. Maybe have people that are local in our community come here and talk about books they've written. It gives local authors a space to talk about things that are near and dear to them. What happens in our programming is something that comes from the heart of the librarians that work here, because we read.
That's another stereotype; not all librarians like to read. We're not just books. We have electronic resources. We have a library of things, an amazing little thing that we offer. For example, maybe a snowblower or a cuff to take care of your blood pressure. We've got oversized yard games. We have a medley of things. We have a therapy cat that you can take home. Yes, we do. We just have some amazing things that we offer here at the library.
Another great space that we have is our collaboratory space. This is where you can come and you can create. Whenever I walk in that room, my heart quickens because I just want to play. I want to create. I want to immerse myself in this room. I never have the time, but I encourage people. If you want to play, if you want to draw, if you want to sew, if you want to do a podcast, if you want to play on our 3D printer, we have the space for you to come to create. You need to mend some clothes. We've got amazing sewing machines.
We've got a lot here that our community is not aware of. We have meeting rooms. We have spaces that if you need a space to tuck yourself away in so you can get down to some serious reading. We have those spaces available here as well.
Bea Bonner:
You all have so much going on. One thing I took advantage of this year, I've always wanted to join a book club, but I'm a person that doesn't like reading some of the same books people read in book club. You did this thing where you went out into the community, and you had a space where people can come read whatever they wanted together. For me, that was perfect. I spent an hour and a half at the mall reading my little fantasy book because I love fantasy books.
Gwen Harrison:
Isn't it wonderful to have a space like that just set aside so that you can just go in, be quiet, be around like-minded people and get into some good reading of your choice? One of my team members, they're extraordinary, had the idea. Let's run with it. And it's been a good thing for the community and for the library to book these spaces so that people can come and bring their favorite book and just sit back and take some time to kind of read and be to themselves. It is important to read. It is fundamental.
Bea Bonner:
We're having a literacy problem. Now, when I was in school, well, my mama was a teacher. So I told people I was reading Little Women when I was like 7 years old. She didn't play. But everybody doesn't have that. Now that we're having students having trouble reading and writing, how do you see see the library fitting into fixing some of those problems.
Gwen Harrison:
We now have a mobile branch. We're able to take this beautiful vehicle out into our neighborhoods, park it, and for an hour or so, you can come, you can browse, you can check out, you can reserve a book. We can bring it to your neighborhood. This is our take in trying to help reduce illiteracy by bringing our mobile branch, to our various wards in the city. They call them literacy deserts, where people just don't have the exposure because librarians aren't in our elementary schools anymore. We've got a lot of volunteers in these spaces, but there have been studies that have shown how critical librarians, school libraries are to the education process. I'm hoping that one day that everybody gets on board, and we've got a librarian in every school in Illinois. I think we would see a difference, such a huge difference. When you have a good, strong librarian working with your educators, there's nothing you can't do.
Bea Bonner:
The librarians I grew up with, they were all black. I grew up in a black community. The teachers we had at school, our librarian was black. So they really instilled not only reading, but reading stories that reflected who we were at that age and at that time. As I grew up, I always loved reading. I saw the impact that had on my life. We did a readathon and we would have a pep rally. At the end of the year, if we did good, you got a pizza party. I still remember the chant the R-E-A-D-I-N-G. Okay, I'm not gonna go through the whole thing. I remember watching Arthur and they told me having fun wasn't hard if I had a library card. I grew up in that age, the age of PBS kids. My mom and I walked to the library together all the time. And I don't see that a lot now. Sometimes you have to go to the people. Our community has that need.
Gwen Harrison:
I'm glad that the mobile branch is here. It is picking up momentum. We've got our community coming out. They're getting involved. They're one of the last places that people can go where it doesn't cost money to be there.
Bea Bonner:
They call that a third space.
Gwen Harrison:
Exactly. It's important to have a place that we're neutral on issues, but we're just here to just expose you to ideas, thoughts, books, literature, and electronic resources. That's why we're here and we need this space. We need this space for everybody. Another good thing that's happening here, we have a new teen librarian. They are knocking it out of the water in terms of drawing our teenagers to the library. We've got a little bit of something for all ages. I just can't say enough about them. I've been doing this a long time and I believe in them and I believe in my community and I believe in the team that I've had the privilege to serve with. I also believe in the leadership at the city of Springfield. You need to have all of these things connected, moving together so that you can be stronger.
Bea Bonner:
Do you have any books that have had the biggest impact on your life or that you like?
Gwen Harrison:
I'm a big science fiction fantasy reader. When I worked here at the library many, many years ago, you would always sign me with a book in my hand, always reading, discussing plots and characters with my patrons that love those kinds of books. One of the things that I've seen, which kind of weirds me out, is some of the things that I read about, flying cars or automated cars, people being able to regenerate body parts. And I'm telling you, this is happening now. It is. I'm, wait a minute, I read about stuff years ago and now it is happening on the ground and in some of those Octavia Butler books. I love children's literature. I love young adult literature. When I was a teenager, I loved Harlequin romances. I'm going to tell you now. I just loved me a good old Harlequin romance. It was always going to end up good. I loved a nice, fresh copy of a Harlequin romance. As I got a little older, I got into Stephen King and Dean Koon. After a while, Stephen King got so scary for me. I couldn't even read him. I couldn't read him at night.
Bea Bonner:
My mama said she was scared to go to the bathroom at night, so she had to stop reading them.
Gwen Harrison:
I went to an author book talk just recently in Jacksonville. The book is called The Woman That Could Not Silence, The Shocking Story of a Woman Who Dared to Fight Back by Kate Moore. She came there and she did an excerpt or two from the book, signed the book. I like women's literature too. I could have easily gone that way, especially when I was in school and I took a women's lit class. I love the way that it unlocks things in me. It made me think on a deeper level. I always liked reading these books because a lot of times you have to read books for what's on the page, but also there's always a deeper, hidden meaning that needs to be unlocked as well. This big old thick thing is going to be the next that I tackle. She did a fine job talking about the book, setting us up, and telling us about what life was like back then and what a courageous woman this book was built on was. I also love the way that reading inspires my kids. I have a son that is a huge reader, is actually working on his first book. You never know where this may take you. I encourage reading. I encourage reading to children. It's even important to read out loud to adults.
Bea Bonner:
If people want to stay connected to you and what the library has going on, what website can we go to?
Gwen Harrison:
It's LincolnLibrary.info.
Bea Bonner:
Thank you for being here today. It's always fun to talk to fellow readers.
Gwen Harrison:
It was my pleasure. Thank you so much, Bea.
