If you love books as much as we do, chances are you have daydreamed about being a librarian at least once. Wonder of wonders! Today's your lucky day. You get to hear from Chris Curran, a library assistant in Sacramento, about the boots-on-the-ground life of a librarian. Not only do we talk about the purpose of providing information to the public, but also all the fun perks—meeting favorite authors, playing Atari in the basement (kidding, sorta), and serving the public with events like the Read to a Dog program!

Let's disrespect Jeff Bezos,

because you, your laugh is pretty I do.

It's a pretty scary. Yeah, it's like, close. But you know, I

love myself, I accept myself for who I am, and I'm not an evil

billionaire. No, you are not. So we would not be friends if you

were no wouldn't I'd probably hunt you for sport, yeah,

or exploit me at one of your warehouses. You

foreign

Welcome to the hybrid pub Scout podcast with me, Emily

Einolander and me. Karim kolatki, hello. I missed you so

much.

We are mapping the frontier between traditional and indie

publishing, and today, we're going to, later in the show,

have an interview with Mr. Chris Curran, who is a librarian

extraordinaire in Sacramento, California. But before that,

we're going to have a nice chat, because we haven't done that for

a while. Oh, how you doing? Corinne, I'm, you know, hanging

in there. What have you Where have you been? What have you

been doing? I'm so glad you asked me and my boyfriend bought

a house, so I've been moving, and Emily and her husband very

graciously helped us move. Mr. JT, who makes a very sexy

dragon. Yes, that's true. He

does. And those are true friends. I have to say people

will help you move. Like, fuck all the rest of them the friends

who will help you move, our true friends, though, when, thank

you. When we got that truck, Yeah, you're welcome. We got

that truck. And I was like, JT, you're gonna have to help

everybody.

Like, that's okay. Oh, like, you're great, yeah, it's true.

So before we move on, I want to plug the giveaway that we are

having right now. Let's do it. So if you go to

hybridpubscout.com

you will see in the menu bar there is a item that says, win a

book. If you click on that, you enter and I win a book, you

might win a book, it will happen be the people's guide to

publishing, a people's guide to publishing by Joe Biel, who I

interviewed in the last episode. And it's a really good book. It

talks about pretty much everything you need to know, and

has a lot of anecdotal evidence to go with it, lots of fun stuff

all over the place, and the more, the more you share, the

more you like, the more entries you get. So So do it, yeah, all

right. So today we wanted to talk a little bit about the big

news, which, by the time this comes out, will have been weak

old news, of course, but that's okay, because it's worth talking

about, sure, and we have been talking about it a lot, and that

is Amazon pulls out of planned New York City headquarters.

Queens,

all right, so let's, let's get down on it. Do you want to we're

reading the New York Times article that came out today,

February 14, 2019 by J David Goodman. I'm sure he's a

wonderful man. I'm sorry, probably making fun of Yeah.

All right, so I'm just gonna read the beginning of this to

lay the groundwork. Lay that groundwork. All right. Amazon,

on Thursday, canceled its plans to build an expansive corporate

campus in New York City after facing an unexpectedly fierce

backlash from some lawmakers and union leaders who contended that

a tech giant did not deserve nearly $3 billion in government

incentives. The company as part of its extensive search for a

new headquarters, had chosen Long Island City Queens as one

of two winning sites, saying that it would create more than

25,000 jobs in the city.

But the agreement to lure Amazon started an intense debate about

the use of public subsidies to entice wealthy companies the

rising cost of living in a rapidly gentrifying

neighborhoods and the city's very identity, a number of state

and local politicians have made it clear that they oppose our

presence and will not work with us to build the type of

relationships that are required to go forward Amazon, Amazon

said in a statement,

yeah, so, so, so the So, butt hurts. No, the governor is

angry, and they're all blaming Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, of

course, because it's all her fault. Yeah, yeah, I did this

single handedly man, like the thickness of her skin, yeah, is

really impressive to me. No, I know. Anyway, we're not talking

about her, though. No, um, so yeah, they agreed to pull out of

New York on Wednesday evening, of course.

Adding to two people familiar with the decision protected

informants. The company did not inform the governor or the mayor

until Thursday morning, shortly before posting this

announcement. Oh, so

polite. They do like drop in the news. Yeah, you're like, No, I

was about to compare them favorably to someone, so I'm not

going to do that. Ever do that. Okay,

how should my voice sound?

Should I sound? I should talk like this, right? That's how

tech boys talk. Yes, that is how tech people talk. After much

thought and deliberation, we've decided not to move forward with

our plans to build a headquarters for Amazon and Long

Island City Queens for Amazon, the commitment to build a new

headquarters requires positive collaborative relationships with

state and local elected officials who will be supportive

over the long term. While polls show that 70% of New Yorkers

support our plans and investment, a number of state

and local politicians have made it clear that they oppose our

presence and will not work with us to build the type of

relationships that are required to go forward with the project

we and many others envisioned in Long Island City. We are

disappointed to have reached this conclusion. We love New

York. It's incomparable dynamism people and culture, and

particularly the community, community of Long Island City,

where we've gotten to know so many optimistic, forward leaning

community leaders, small business owners and residents.

There are currently over 5000 Amazon employees in Brooklyn,

Manhattan and Staten Island, and we plan to continue growing

these teams. I'm stopping here. Okay, it's really, that's like

two more paragraphs, yeah. And also, like, they say that they

have 5000 employees, but they also said that they didn't hire

any employees that came through to work with the City Council

and go to these hearings at all. So I thought that was

interesting. It is, yeah, it's, I don't know. I mean, it's

interesting to me that they thought they could just go into

I mean, especially a city like I don't know. I mean, especially a

city known for its mean people, yeah,

I will say, though, having lived in New York, I do not think New

Yorkers are rude. I think they're just always in a hurry.

So it's more about like, their lack of time than it is about

their, like, rudeness, at least, that's what I found anyway. But

I'll just stick up for them on that count, because I think

that's true. I mean, I don't, I don't necessarily mind. Mean,

people all the time sometimes, but not all the time. Yeah,

yeah. And it can be funny, honestly. I mean, most of the

time it's just amusing anyway, so that's fine. Yeah. So that's

fine. So we already talked about, yeah, they only moved.

They moved like one person there. It says, is that right?

Well, here's what it says. It says the company did not hire a

single New Yorker as an employee to represent it in discussions

with local groups.

They were just so confident. They were, yeah, it's

overconfident. Yeah, exactly. Its main representatives

traveled between Washington and Manhattan, and only one had

moved into an apartment to work with community members and

foster support. Yeah. Do you want to say what they did to

attract, yeah, sure, yeah. They offered, Oh, yeah. So to attract

Amazon, city and state officials offered the company one of the

largest ever incentive packages in exchange for a much larger

return in jobs and tax revenue. They agreed to remake plans for

the Queen's waterfront and move a distribution center for school

lunches. They even agreed to give Mr. Bezos access to a

helipad. I mean, yeah, that's a that's a deal breaker. Yeah,

maybe if they hadn't promised a helipad, Amazon would have

walked earlier. Yeah, I don't know, I'm calling home. Oh,

that's like this guy,

State Senator Michael giannaris. Oh, yeah, genaris. Genaris,

that's it, yeah, gianaras. I mean, giannarius, I don't know.

That's one of the, probably another Greek name. I'm

mispronouncing it. Sorry, Greek people. He doesn't do it on

purpose.

Microaggressions against Greek names, once again, I'm sorry.

But he says, like a petulant child, Amazon insists on getting

its way or takes its ball and leaves, said Mr. Generis, a

Democrat whose district includes Long Island City. The only thing

that happened here is that a community was going to be

profoundly affected by their presence. Started asking

questions, yeah, yeah. So what they said they were going to do

under the plan, within 15 years, the company could occupy as much

as 8 million square feet of office space, including office

buildings for as many as as 40,000 workers. Oh, my God, just

like they're creating, did you? Did you end up seeing sorry to

bother you? Yes, they did. It's like that company that, what was

it called? I don't remember the name of it. Yeah, that was a

weird movie. I mean, it was good.

But it did not go in the direction that I thought it was

either headed toward worry free. Ah, worry worry free. So

they're, they're trying to encourage all of their workers

to move in and, like, live at the at the company, like, right?

Like, Facebook, yeah. So interest. It all makes so much

sense. It really does. If you're, like, taking up that

much space, everyone around you is like, it's like a company

town, yeah? It totally is. That's yeah, which is what

Seattle has become.

Well, yeah, there one thing I also wanted to say that I

thought was interesting is that when I think Amazon had meetings

with was this again, oh, but Okay, Mr. Cuomo had brokered a

meeting between Amazon executives who and this one,

Brian heussman, who had represented the company at the

city councilor, and union leaders who had been resistant

to the deal. The meeting ended without any compromise on the

part of Amazon, despite the fact that the unions were willing to

work with them on some things, and they weren't completely

like, we don't want any part of this.

And one of the guys said, one of the guys from the union said,

shame on them. The arrogance of saying, do it my way or not at

all, which I think is pretty I mean, well, in the funny but the

thing is, the

fact that they were even talking to union people at all is so

outside the realm of their values. Like, the worst thing

that could happen to Amazon is for their employees to unionize,

and so for them to be sitting there talking to unions, it's

like, why even bother honestly anyway, so they're what they're

going to do now so that their ball and go home. Well,

honestly, see, I would be very happy if Amazon were destroyed.

Uh huh, yeah, oh, same, but, but I don't think it's gonna happen.

I don't think so either, and I think there are ways to, like,

diminish its power, and I think that what they are planning to

do is actually something that could potentially be helpful for

jobs and like, more realistic and not necessarily taking over

a city. Yeah, right, right, because then they, you know,

they're spread out so that what they're going to do, the company

had chosen New York as well as a site in Northern Virginia for a

major expansion. On Thursday, it said it had no plans to reopen a

search for a second location. Amazon still planned to add

25,000 jobs in Northern Virginia and 5000 in Nashville, where it

announced a project to build a center for its operations. It

will take the 25,000 jobs that would have gone to Queens and

spread them out over its 17 tech hubs across the United States

and Canada, including Manhattan. So they're just gonna, like,

hire all over the place. Which health is more helpful? Yeah, I

think so too, because what you said about Seattle is this, it

just, yeah, flew in a bunch of new people, exactly. And yeah,

if they're in urban centers, there's bound to be some people

in the city who could benefit from the jobs. Yeah, without

them, like, destroying, taking over the entire city and turning

it into a destroying rent, yes, like, I mean, as placing

homeless people in as much as they're like, is anywhere

affordable to live in this country anymore. Now, seriously,

I know, sad, yeah, so that's, that's the big news. And it's,

it's not as if it's really gonna hurt them, hurt them. But I

think that any,

any progress, is good progress, and like to see that someone can

fight them and win. Yes, totally is huge. It even as just an

emotional tool, yeah, because people see that and they're

like, oh, right, they can, they can be pushed away. Yeah, they

can be forced to, force to acclimate to other people's

will. Yeah, they can do the right thing. Well, even if

they're forced to do it, yeah, well, I don't know if that's the

right thing. I think it's more just looking for New York. I

mean, if, if you're, like, waving a stick at someone who's

trying to get into your house and you're about to bash them in

the head, yeah? Like, I wouldn't call them running away from you

doing the right thing necessarily. Well, they're doing

the right thing for themselves. That's exactly, which is just

like Amazon, exactly, congratulations on putting your

self interest above everything else. I mean, that's, that's, I

mean, Ayn Rand, yeah, exactly.

Thank you for prioritizing yourself.

We have Chris Curran here today, and he is. He works for

Sacramento Public Library. That's right. I'm a library

assistant with Sacramento Public Library, the Rancho Cordova

branch, if you want to get specific, ooh, Rancho Cordova is

about 10 miles east of Sacramento. Well, we have

questions about libraries because we're we're in the

soulless mode.

Money Making portion of the Book World, yes, all we care about is

money, right? And librarians are the more community oriented,

altruistic type people. So we want to know what it's like to

be community oriented and altruistic. All right. So let's

start with the obvious question, what made you realize you wanted

to be a librarian well, so to be perfectly honest, what

originally got me thinking about

library science in general was entirely, entirely self

gratification. My background is in historical research. That's

what I actually went to Sac State, California State

University Sacramento

for with a bachelor's in history, with an emphasis in

research. And the best way I thought to gain access to all of

these fabulous materials would would be working in, working in

a library, and working as a librarian. Then, you know, as I

looked more into it, I did start to see some of the more I

started to see

how a librarians job, especially working in a public setting, a

public library setting

definitely had more of a social work aspect to it, helping

people find information and helping everybody improve their

lives. And I find that incredibly fulfilling. So to

prepare other than your historical education,

or your history education a minor in research, yes, and your

minor in research. How else did you prepare to to embark on this

career? Well, in order to be a librarian, you need to have the

equivalent of a master's degree in library science. It goes by a

couple of, you know, depending on the program, depending on the

university. It goes by a couple of you know, different monikers.

I'm currently in the master's program at

San Jose State University, the Masters in library and

information science. There are other programs that are just

Masters in Information Science, masters in library science.

What's the difference between information Yeah, so I always

liken it to the difference between, say, a practicing

physician, a physician that has their own private practice,

versus a research physician working in, say, more of a

university setting or a research setting, looking for cures, you

know, for cancer or AIDS or something like that. Okay, so

you have library science, which is more of that you know

practicing physician, you know the general practitioner. And

then you have the information scientist. I call them the meta

librarian, the information scientist studies. This is when

we start getting more into the social science aspect of

information, information seeking behavior is

that in your in your classes? Oh, yes,

phrase repeated over

librarians will know

so so the information scientists will

look at how how people look for information and how to change

cataloging schema and how to how to better organize information

and make it available to the audience. And I shouldn't. I

should pause here really quickly that the point the mission of

the library has, of a library in general, has always been to make

information accessible to its audience. In the case of say, a

public library, its audience is the public in the case of a

university library, its audience

is the university community, students, faculty and other

people working at working for the university. So while the

information scientist looks at information seeking behaviors of

people, and let's be honest, Google has definitely affected

that.

And

they look at they look at how people seek information, and how

better to to make that information accessible. It

almost sounds like, What are you talking about Google? It sounds

like UX or UI design for a website or any other like system

in which people have to.

A like, medical systems, where they have to organize. Like,

what do you need? How do you need it? How do you progress

from one screen to another? Like, do you find that people

who are in Information Library Science are able to find careers

in that area because it sounds like it might feed into it,

really well, absolutely.

So we, we as library science students, we have to take many

classes right now, especially in computer and database design.

Oh, wow, yeah, database design, OPAC design, online public

access catalog, by the way.

So, so we have to take several classes. The way, okay, let me

back up the way that Emily s degrees are organized. You have

to take, you know, core classes, three. In the case of San Jose,

three core classes, one of which is information retrieval system

design, and that kind of introduces you to the concepts

of data, metadata, records, multifaceted search and and

things like that. I bring this up because once, when you pass

these core classes, including IR system design, you then can kind

of tailor the degree to whatever it is that you're you're

interested in. And I know plenty of people who have concentrated

more on the

more on the cataloging and information retrieval design

aspect, and you see a lot of people going the quote, unquote,

non traditional route once when they graduate. And what I mean

by that, instead of becoming archivists or or librarians,

they instead are hired on by big tech companies, people like

Google, people like Facebook, people, people who have to deal

with massive,

uh, well, inventories specifically, um, especially

people like Blue Apron, oh yeah, and and Netflix so and they are

signing up for services. They have to keep track of all the

accounts and all of the things that are available to the people

with accounts, exactly how people, how the customer will,

will look for that. So, in the case of, in the case of

something like, like, Blue Apron, you know, you have the

customer looking for, I don't know, potato. So, so how do we

as a taxonomist, as a somebody designing the database or the

the catalog. How do we

classify a potato?

And,

you know, people get into heated arguments. Okay, well, so how,

how do we differentiate between a, you know, an Idaho potato,

and, I don't know, a sweet potato or something which is not

a potato. Oh, it's not. You have opinions about potatoes.

So you're saying people get into heated arguments, but you mean

you have gotten into

not necessarily potatoes. I think it was over,

but, but, yeah. So how do we classify a potato? Are people

looking for potatoes, or are they looking for, you know, the

the brown Idaho potato. So what do we do when we create the

database, yeah, when we create the catalog, when people search,

what should they land on first? Should they land on basic

potato? Right? That has been further delineated between the

different kinds of potato, or should we just give them all of

the potatoes at once? Wow, I want all the potatoes on their

own. Yeah, right. So, so that's when you start getting into

taxonomy. I think I threw that out, yeah, of creating

headings and subheadings and then sub subheadings and sub sub

sub headings and on down the line. And, yeah, you have big

tech companies, people, again, like, like, like, Blue Apron

hiring taxonomists who have MLIS degrees or the equivalent, wow,

yeah, yeah. Non traditional route, yeah. But then you have,

you know, people going the traditional route, people who go

into who

become librarians or archivists, and who then try to figure out,

in a more traditional sense, when you create and when you

create an online public access catalog and OPAC how, what do?

What does our audience want when they land, when they're

searching for something? And.

And when they land on a page, what information do they want?

What goes into the items record, what go how do we tag it? How do

we change a keyword search versus a subject search, right?

Wow, genuinely. Thank you for that. I was about to ask, like,

what? What role does technology play? But I think that you've

now we kind of Yeah. We know, yeah. We have to be honest. Now

the Internet has changed, and here we go again. Information

seeking behavior

people expect when they walk into a library, when they use an

OPAC, or when they're looking for a book on the shelves, when

they're browsing, you know, when they're browsing on the shelves,

they are used to the Google experience or the Yahoo

experience, or, you know, whatever they want, and they're

all, yeah, exactly they want it now, but they don't exactly know

how to how to perform the Search and how to sift through relevant

and irrelevant information. So that's, that's kind of why you

have that. That's not kind of, that is why you have librarians.

That is why you have library staff. Our job is to,

is to provide, is to construct the query, is to construct

query. That is our job, and it's that that aspect has never

really changed, right? Technology has you know, as the

march of progress has gone forward, but the tools that we

now use has changed, yeah, and made our lives easier, and the

patrons lives easier, and our lives more difficult, and the

patrons lives more Yeah, raising the standards or raising the

stakes a little bit is kind of what it sounds like to me, like

everything needs to be done at, in some ways a lower level,

because you don't have to go through as much labor, but on

other in other ways, a higher level, because you need to move

more quickly and through, like more available information.

Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And if I can, if I can, use a classic

example, really quick,

so we as so we as library staff, we have to, or we oftentimes

have to, sift through

what the patron is looking for. A patron comes up to us and

comes up to me and asks me, and here's a classic example. They

say they want to learn more about China.

And I go, Okay, you want to learn more about China now. Are

you looking more at the demographics? Are you looking

more at the geography? Are you looking more at the culture? And

then the patron will say, No, no, my grandmother just died and

she left me her teapot.

Or about China, China as as,

Oh, I get

it. And so that is a that is a classic example

of how the librarians interaction with the patron can

change, or can, can, kind of get at the heart of what the what

the patron is looking for. And now I know, now I the librarian,

know how to construct, more efficiently constructed the

patron query. Yeah, so this is, this is a ridiculous example of

what we're talking of, of what I'm talking about, but it's very

illustrative. So now I know to, now I know to search for

ceramics. I need to broaden the search to ceramics, for

instance, or I need to narrow it to ceramics. A patron might not

necessarily know how to sift through the irrelevancies to

find what they are looking for. It's my job to know how to do

that. It sounds like in addition to being able to

figure out those search terms, that you also need to have a

little bit of a psychological understanding of of how people

approach things like, yeah, an ability to read people and read

people's intentions, absolutely, and that's why,

that's Why, when you when, okay, here's something

I find incredibly surprising. Yes to everybody who is

listening, the Dewey Decimal system still exists.

Are there people who think it doesn't? Yes? No. People come in

and they say, Oh, do you haha? Do you remember the Dewey

Decimal System?

Yes.

In fact, California history is in the 970s

979, I don't want to be, I think, but I.

Be wrong on that, and we're gonna test it. Yeah, we're doing

a test. We don't know how to judge it, because we know

nothing about That's right, yeah, I

wouldn't necessarily expect you to, but that's that's your job,

yeah? What about, what about card catalogs with little,

literal cards? Yeah, do those still exist? What? Absolutely,

they still exist. Really? Oh, that makes me happy. That makes

us very happy. Yeah, they still exist. And there's, you know, a

lot of conversation about, how is that converted? How do you

convert a card catalog into a digital into a digital

realm?

I think we're going to get a little more into the day to day

life of a librarian, a public librarian, though,

rather than a research oriented librarian, but yeah, put a pin

in that. We'll talk more about it later, off offline.

This is, like, when people say, when people say, Oh, God, I'm

such a nerd, because they play video games, or they go to

Marvel movies, like, get out of here. Yeah. This is some real

nerd. Like, if you think you're a nerd, like, you can't play,

you're not allowed, yeah. So however, with that said, we do

have a sizable collection of video games. And

wait, why have you rent out

content? Yeah, yeah, I think so. Don't do I don't show up at his

workplace.

My PlayStation. Where's my Sega Genesis?

I want an old Nintendo. I want the original Nintendo. Why do

you have an Atari

story about old NES cartridges, the kind that you, you know you

blew into? Yes, housed in a deep, dark basement of the

center

autumn, oh, yeah,

had a long day. You go down there and play NES, I should

propose that that sounds good. After Party, yeah? Like after

work party? Yeah, we just come to my house and do a podcast and

drink Santa Cosmos, yep.

So, so let's talk. Let's talk more about the, you know, not

necessarily the after parties of the library, which I'll let you

keep to yourself for. Now, maybe we can, like, discuss that

later. Wild,

crazy. What does your day to day look like, um, my day to day.

So.

So another thing that shocks me

when when people come in and they see me sitting at the

circulation desk, I'm very, very frequently I am asked, Are you a

volunteer? Oh, my God, really? So let me tell your listeners

that people sitting at the circulation desk, yes, they are

gainfully employed,

very hard.

Is it? You're not, you're not the stereotypical like older

woman with glasses. Yeah, type

is that? Why do you think?

Um, he is making a face. Okay, no comment. We're trying to keep

it on the up and up, which is why I said stuff

instead of what I would normally say.

Um, no.

We understand you're publishing people. We wear glasses too.

Yeah, I just got contact lenses. It was a big deal. Yeah,

I can touch my eyeball now.

It's a brand new day.

I feel a lot stronger in

general. Okay, so you sit at the circulation desk, people ask you

if you're a volunteer. You're not a volunteer. You're a

hardcore librarian worker who puts themselves on the line

every day to get people the information they need. There you

go.

It should be said, I am not a librarian right now. I am a

library assistant. So let me tell you what that means,

aspiring library, yeah, librarian, a librarian with

training wheels, okay? Librarian cadet,

yeah, exactly.

A librarian is a supervisory position. Okay?

They supervise personnel, they supervise collections, they

supervise programs, library programs. I can go more into

depth than that in a second.

So as a library assistant, my job is to librarians do this

too, but.

My job is to handle more the day to day tasks, interactions in

the library. So I deal a lot with

handing out library cards. Yes, those still exist, by the way.

Yes, I have two, Washington County and Multnomah County.

We've got

a hardcore library all up in here.

Exactly, um, so, so if, if you a patron, walk into a library and

you interact with a library worker. You're probably dealing

with a with a library assistant, or the equivalent job title. So

I handle more the day to day circulation interactions, you

know, check in, check out, library cards. I field,

personally. I field a lot of reference questions. That's the

people coming in asking for, you know, directions to Kinko's

ranging from directions to Kinko's all the way to I'm doing

research on John Sutter. I need a book about China, yeah, yeah,

exactly, and specifically ceramics.

So ideal. I do that probably half of my day. And the way it's

set up at least, at least for us, I'm pretty sure it's, it's

similar enough in other library systems. It's kind of an hour on

our off

kind of, kind of thing. So I spend an hour on on the desk, as

we say,

and then an hour off and around. Or, yeah, well, no, so, so what

am I doing the rest of the time? Yeah, I want to know. What are

you playing Nintendo,

yeah.

So we have, in our case, we have a lot of different programs that

the library puts on for for patron use, obviously, for

instance, my my favorite um, because I'm a big dog lover, I

overlook the read to a dog program.

So, so the i, so what we do? We

partner with a

local helper dog. Or, like, service dogs, yeah, service dog,

yeah, I couldn't think of it. Or therapy or either, there's a lot

of dogs that help people,

yeah, exactly, a therapy dog organization, right? These are

the kind of folk that that, these are the kinds of

organizations I go around to, like nursing homes or

airports now, or even universities I know Sac State

now has

on campus.

So we partner with the with organizations like that, and

they come in once a month and bring in, you know, fully

trained, fully accredited helper dogs, service dogs

to sit down in our community room. And the idea is that kids,

kids that struggle with their reading skills, will come in,

and they will sit down, and they will read to a dog who is a non

judgmental audience, right? And and so they can read to a dog

without fear of being judged, without worrying you know that

they're not performing. You know what? They should you know this.

It's a safe space. It's a safe space for kids who are

struggling. Everybody class isn't like, yeah, pulling their

eyes at them or whatever. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And it's, it's a

very constructive program. And

I got to be honest with you, I'm not, I'm not there to look at

the kids and and chart their progress or anything. That's

that's not what this is about. This is just providing a safe

space. So I'm facilitating that for these kids and for anybody

else really who wants to come in, we don't. We don't limit if,

if, let's say we have an ESL a new arrival

come in and there and they want to practice their their English

reading, or any language reading comprehension skills,

come one, come all. Yeah, that's great. Yeah. How many people do

you get for that? I knew about programs like this from, you

know, I'm a greyhound person. Do you remember that Greyhound who

was so sad that nobody came to read to him? And there was that

viral Facebook photo of this, this sad white Greyhound lying

on his side, and it was like, I think it was like, Mickey or

something like that. Nobody came to read to Mickey today,

and then all of the kids went to the library to read to him after

that. And it's like greyhounds just always look sad guys.

But that's that's how I became. Do you have a lot.

Of people coming in, or do you have lonely, sad dogs waiting

for the children? I've noticed that it definitely that, that

traffic patterns definitely change based upon what time of

the year it is. So when School's in session, guess what we see

more kids?

Yeah, okay, makes sense. And sometimes it can be, there can

be a bit of a line. Oh, that's good. Yeah, I'd wait in line to

read to a dog. Oh, hell yeah, yeah. I waited in line to pet a

dog during like, midterms, yeah, yeah. That's totally me. Oh my

gosh. So I don't know if I'll leave this in or not, but

did I ever tell you about when my dad was having surgery? I

went to go hang out with him for a while, and it was very soon

after the surgery had happened, and he was talking to my mom on

the phone, and

a service dog was coming down the hall and came into his room

and he's like, I gotta go. I gotta go. There's a dog.

It was, it was it was golden. I think she understands. We'll

find out when she sends me her weekly email,

or bi weekly weekly email. She's our number one fan. We are her

number one fan. We are grateful. Yeah, yes, my mama e

so that's one of the programs you work with. That's the That's

your favorite.

I mean, it wouldn't it be anyone's like, yes, be real.

Come on. So we have a question from the

pool of listeners. Yes. They said, Oh, you're interviewing

someone who works at a library, and this is a publishing person,

an editor, and they were curious to know that

if we want to support authors, we're not quite sure how the

library purchasing system works, and how much checking a book out

of the library supports the author of said book.

So I kind of we would like to know about like, how the books

get into the library, how often they are donated, how often

they're bought, and whether,

whether the authors benefit from books that go to the library or

or less so.

So that is, I know it's a huge it's a huge thing, but yeah, for

people in publishing, that's something I know. I mean,

Corinne, you go to? Did you go to Ala this year? No, I'm going

in a couple months. Okay, yeah, it's the American Library

Association trade show. So it's obviously important, yeah, but

we're not quite sure how it works, so maybe you can speak to

that a little bit at least. So that is so far outside my

wheelhouse,

that that

as I as I understand it,

there, there are,

there are metrics that the people working in

another acronym, CSD Collection Services Department, I think,

is what that stands for. There are metrics that they use to

determine what is bought and

how many are bought, how many of a specific volume are bought,

and how many in a how many of a specific book? Let's say, let's

use a book as an example. How many

books are bought based upon what anticipated demand and

what format they come in, right? So do we want a regular, you

know, a regular, hardcover book, or do we want it released in CD,

audio book? Do we want it do how many quote, unquote copies, and

you guys can probably talk to me, can probably talk to this

more than I could. How many eBooks, right? Yeah, I know some

people who, like, have expertise and like the like overdrive and

the systems that one program we use, that's one app we use

overdrive, we use Libby, which is right, right? It to overdrive

and Libby's for audiobooks, right? Or is that correct? I

thought they also, they also did ebooks as well, but, but I could

be way off the mark. This is something we have to look up. I

have been working in publishing for two years, and

I work for a public library, and I pride myself on my.

It's Friday

night. Yeah, you know what? I'm off the clock. Yeah, never off

the clock.

It's always about the books. Clap, clap. That's right. It's

always books. O'clock books. Yeah,

a nerd, safe space, safe space.

So in terms of how it benefits the author, that is a great

question. Um,

you know, before, before I got into library science, I was a

classical musician, and

I know as a classical music student that people will always

say, Oh, well, why don't you perform, you know, at my

daughter's bought mitzvah, we won't pay you, but, but, but

you'll be paid an exposure. You

know, God,

so so I know how incredibly frustrated or how incredibly

frustrating hearing that can be. So with that said, let me say

that exact same thing,

author exposure.

Yeah, you know the the library can provide a lot of exposure

for for authors,

what's interesting, and I don't, I don't know how how you guys

are going to feel about this, but Sacramento Public does offer

self publishing services. Oh, oh no, that's That's why our

podcast is called hybrid pub Scout, and we're mapping the

frontier between traditional and indie publishing. So we, we, we,

we support all types of book creation and circulation. Yeah,

I, I'm sure a lot of other large library systems, like

Sacramento, public offer similar services to folks like to to

self publishing folks.

But anyway, back to back to how that can benefit the author.

Library acquisitions can benefit an author.

I'm sure that exposure pays plays a large part.

But many libraries, and especially the larger ones, will

host author visits. Cool. One of one of my favorite YouTube

channels

is Ask a Mortician. Oh, yeah,

yes. Oh so cool.

I I will show you a picture.

Totally not remember this, because, well, okay, the story

is that

we had an author visit for her latest book, and we all we also

had an author visit for her first book. Her first book was a

memoir, Smoke Gets In Your Eyes and other tales from the

crematory, I think is what it's called. Her name is Caitlin

Doty, by the way, right. Sorry,

I should

probably put that in there. Hi, Caitlin. I am a big fan boy of

yours. But anyway, yeah, seriously, I've spread your

gospel. Yes, that's how I heard about her from you, yeah, but so

we had author visit for both of her books. And

so so we do introduce authors that way. And sometimes you know

some of the more controversial and oftentimes we will have self

published authors, or even not. You know, non self published

authors come to the library and ask if they can post, or if they

can have book signings and such.

Libraries are very big fans of that absolutely. I guess I heard

of bookstores more as the place for author, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Have you Corinne? Corinne is in marketing. I am so yeah. So she,

she's kind of on the pulse of finding places, yeah, of events,

yeah, events for authors. So have you had readings at

libraries? Maybe when I worked for a past publisher, I probably

did. I'm just blanking on it now, but I feel like I have in

the past. Yeah, we should Yeah, our publicity, yes, yes,

yeah. But.

Yeah, your local your local library, would be a great place

to to consider as well.

And I do know that oftentimes, you know, we will have authors

of, you know,

varying persuasions, self published,

you know, or fully published,

yeah.

And they will, and they will hold up a copy of their book,

and they and they will say, Do you have a copy of this? And we

will sometimes say, No, we don't. And then they will just

donate it to us, and then

we will send it down to collection services to have it

cataloged, have it put into the OPAC, have it ultimately put

into our rotating collection. Okay, I know that in so I say, I

know. I just know it exists. I don't know the details, but I

remember several months ago, there was a little bit of a

kerfuffle with libraries and, oh, I forget which company it

was, one of the big five. Publishing companies

raised their ebook prices a lot for library systems, because,

from what I understand, they do it on a number of checkouts

basis. And it's like, once you have a certain number of

checkouts, you have to pay another fee. So it's like a

licensing fee. So,

yeah, it's not, it's not like you can keep it until it falls

apart, sort of situation. It's like, once you buy it, yeah,

with an ebook, it's like you license it per several, you

know, like dozen reads, yeah, or and so, yeah, it sounds like the

the electronic side of things is easier to monetize for

publishing companies, and so they're trying to work harder to

get that money from the libraries. And that's been a

little bit controversial. So I totally see that. I hadn't, I

heard about it, but I, to be perfectly honest, I hadn't

followed up on that. Yeah, it's something that's been part of

your purview, I guess, like the, yeah, yeah. So you don't have,

like, a buyer for the library. You have the, I forget the

acronym, yes, we have, we have collection services

which have CSD, yes,

a number of people in them what that

number is, and I know that again, they apply certain

metrics to it, and then They also, you can always, always

suggest you a patron can suggest a title to a library, hopefully,

yeah. And

remember, a library's job is to meet the information need of its

audience. That's its job, yeah. And if the information need is,

you know, to

have a certain author in the collection, a high demand author

in the collection, the library will meet that as best it can.

In in the case of larger public systems such as Sacramento, um,

more copies will be bought. Um, but if you have a smaller system

out in my hometown of Lompoc, beautiful California, who is

part of a larger system. I think Santa Barbara. You know, they

again, they will have less resources, money to buy copies

as well. But you can always suggest a title to be put on, to

be put on a shelf. You can always request that copies, you

know, certain titles be taken off a shelf, but you can always,

you can always ask to have a copy put on or to have a title

taken off the shelf. Libraries will probably gleefully say, No,

everything on the shelf. Yeah, I'm of the opinion. Personally,

I'm of the opinion, and many other people are a good library

has something in it to offend everyone. Yeah, yeah. So

every year the ALA and libraries in general, but the ALA will

will gleefully host Banned Books Week, yeah, yeah. Well, Banned

Books Week, it's the most wonderful time of the year,

and libraries will gleefully, gleefully sponsor it and and

have talks about banned books, and, you know, specifically

highlight certain titles. But anyway, back to collections and

acquisitions. That is a that is a thing unto itself that I'm not

entirely familiar with, to be honest, I'm sure within like a

year, you will be an expert. Yeah,

it's a Chekhov's gun of information seeking.

I.

Well, we're gonna ask the fun questions now, those are mostly

corinnes questions. Yes, they are as I love fun, yeah, that's

why. And you can hear, okay,

yeah, okay, I love fun. I hate fun.

Yeah, I'm known as the fun one. She's the fun one. I'm the

straight laced one. Oh, you're because that's how Virgos and

Aquarius is.

Straight laced ones and Virgos. Oh, yeah, that totally makes

that that's how that

works. Okay, go for so my first fun question is, do you judge

people for the books that they check out of the library? For

example, if someone comes up to you and they're like, I want to

check these five Nicholas sparks books out, do you judge them for

their poor literary taste the space he's making right now?

I mean, obviously you're like, cordial

to

them, fill in the blanks. Yeah. No, I Okay. Okay, here's, here's

how I kind of think about it. When doctors and surgeons, you

know when, they're on the clock, they are professional, right? I

think of it that way too, when when I'm on the clock and when

I'm doing my job. And you know, my job is to provide information

to the public, yeah, and whatever the information may be

when I'm on that, that is what I'm there to do, regardless of

what that information is right? I am there to provide

information, okay? And no, I don't I. I kind of go into

professional mode. I don't know how to I don't know how better

to explain that. I wish I could give you a juicier answer, no,

okay, that's okay. You Yeah, yeah. People, right. However, to

that point, something else does kind of creep up in my little

head where, you know, if something is coming across the

circ desk, you know the party line is to is to not really

comment on what somebody is checking out. But if I do notice

something like,

I don't know, they're there, they they're checking out

something that has to do with California history, for

instance, okay? And then, you know, I will, I will look at

what they have, and then I will say, Oh, I see you're interested

in in California history. Are you, is there something specific

that you're that you're hoping to research? And they say, Well,

yes, I'm interested in agriculture in early 20th

century California. Oh, okay, cool. Well, there is a book I

forget the type, I forget the the author's name, but it's

called California dreamin, and it's about the foundation of

agriverbs, as the historian coined them in California.

Specifically, he uses case studies of orange down in down

in, well, Orange County. We also, he also, very

specifically, has case studies on Orange Vale, which is east of

Sacramento, and Fair Oaks, which is also east of Sacramento. The

point I'm getting at is that, no, while I may not judge a

person for what they're checking out, I sometimes will look at

what they're what they're checking out, and if it's

innocuous enough, you know, I might make a recommendation.

Yeah, sure. So you're a bit like that. If you liked this, you'll

like, right? Yeah, oh yeah, I am a walking and talking reading

recommendation machine.

That's the best. It is. What is the oddest request that you've

gotten from a patron? I mean, not even in terms of like, books

or materials or anything, but just in terms of like, Are you

like before? When you were you were like, you know, somebody

asked me where the Kinkos was or something like that. Like, just

random requests. There have been plenty of instances when it's

like, disengaged, disengaged.

Like, oh, I think I hear my I think I hear the branch

supervisor calling my name.

Well, you know, still, one of my favorites is, are you a

volunteer? Right? And over and over again. So, um, no, I am

gainfully employed. Thank you very much. Also, like, who

cares? Yeah,

I don't know if this is necessarily strange, but I do

get

it's strange to me. How about that, where I get asked over and

over again, there are still libraries. Oh, what are you

kidding these people all the time? Oh, my God, all the time.

Well, doesn't Google take care of that? Oh, my answer is,

seriously.

The answer is no, because.

Someone doesn't necessarily know how to filter out information.

Yes, you know and how to filter out irrelevancies, yeah, and I'm

sorry I keep harping on this,

but Google, Google and computers, will return a crap

ton of information, most of it irrelevant, and it has

absolutely nothing to do with what you're looking for.

And the algorithms, sure, the algorithms every day are being

improved upon and becoming more and computers every day think

more and more like we do, but it's never going to happen.

They're never going to make the same kind of connections that

the human mind can

so there will always need to be an a quote, unquote information

professional,

like back in the 80s and 90s.

Do you remember this? Well, no, because we weren't really adults

back then, but when you know secret the Secretary was the job

title, Secretary was rebranded, and now they became like

executive assistants or administrative, yeah, you know,

something like that. And well, kind of you see librarian being

rebranded, that's rebranded like that, and information

professional is more and more frequently used, and

it's more illustrative, I think, but I think that the information

professional title is more descriptive and more

illustrative of the job and The role that they play. Yeah, okay,

yeah, absolutely.

All right. Chris, do you have any closing remarks you would

like to make about your profession?

Whatever? Anything about books that you would like to share

with our book loving listeners, I love books that's a good

I love book,

um, good book o'clock somewhere,

um.

And I am a

firm believer in, you know, the transformative power of books

and the worlds that they can open up. You know,

we've all heard this before. Books open doors for people.

They they

make people better, better people. They teach people how to

empathize, which,

you know, is

typically important. Yeah.

Especially important now and

book Good, yeah,

that's my new bumper sticker, and I'm going to put a em dash

and then your name. Yeah, in terms of my profession, yes, I

am employed

volunteer. Yes, right, yeah, that's your biggest takeaway.

There are still libraries. There are still the Dewey, the

catalogs, the Dewey Decimal System, and people who actually

work in libraries and not just volunteer. Yep, exactly. And the

job of the library always has and always will be, to make

information accessible to its to its

audience. The fact that information

is now record is now recorded on a variety of different media is

irrelevant, right? Regardless of what the medium might be, a

library will be there to provide it.

I love that. I love that. And that's perfect for what we're

trying to to unpack with this podcast, because we are trying

to figure out how

all of these things come together to serve us and to

serve the

the proliferation of learning, and, you know, happiness, yeah,

information in general, which I I associate, and I think you

guys do too with with books. Well, Chris, thank you so much

for

Yeah, we're gonna want to talk again. Once you have new layers

of expertise, how much longer do you have in school?

It's still another three semesters for me. Okay, so

you're gonna have like, all kinds of new things to say at

the Oh, yeah, I imagine,

yeah.

And a lot, hopefully a lot more fun experience, you're gonna

have to start writing it down. So, yeah, that's true. That's

true, yeah, oh yes.

Book, good.

Okay,

well, I have a big announcement. Yes, I quit.

Bit audible today. Yeah, I that was good. That was one of my

biggest barriers to quitting Amazon. Like, I haven't quit all

the way. I do want to stay around for Kindle Unlimited,

because I want to support, like, self published authors, right,

right? But that's not who gets audio books usually, yeah, and

if they do, they're fine, yeah, don't need my help, right? True,

but the point is, there is a new service called libro FM, and it

is, it partners with independent bookstores, and so the

audiobooks that you're buying are being bought through the

site, but from in an independent bookstore in your area, that's

awesome. Yeah, it's, yeah, it's kind of a dream come true. As

soon as I saw that, and it was like, in, you live in Portland,

so you're, you would be supporting Powells. So, like, I

can get my audio books from Powells too, yeah, through an

app, right, right? And I was like, Okay, I have no excuse

anymore, yeah, so that's amazing. Well, congratulations.

Thank you. How do you feel? I feel a lot better, good, like I

was, yeah, I was walking around with lots of guilt, and also

just like, wow, I have no balls.

So yeah, I'm very pleased with my decision. Yes, I'm pleased

also, thank you. I'm very happy for you. Yes, very proud of you.

Endless pride. Oh, yeah, that's true. So what are you reading?

Oh, I am still reading the road to Jonestown, mostly though,

because I have been moving Yes, which is a massive undertaking.

It is, and then before that, you were at ALA.

I was up in Seattle visiting with librarians and other

library minded people, and it was really fun. And everybody

was it was actually, like really cool to talk to librarians,

because I think out of everyone in, like, sort of the book

industry, they seem to be the most excited about books that

I've spoken to, like my booksellers and whatever, yeah,

too, you know.

So anyway, that was, that was very, very cool. They're all

very enthusiastic. And it's good because there, I mean, even if

they are, you know, employees, yeah, page for what they do,

there's an, just an element of community service to it. Yeah,

that I really respect well. And I think getting your what

library science degree is also, like, pretty grueling, yeah, so

I feel like you have to be pretty passionate about it just

to, like, get yourself through school. Yeah, get your degree.

So anyway, but that I feel, felt like that was a highlight of the

show, was just the enthusiasm of like, everyone who came up and

talked to us. So that was really cool to see. So very exciting.

Yeah, so, or hug your local librarian. I was gonna say, kiss

them. I was like, Don't do that. Also ask permission before you

get I'm giving the worst only, only hug them with their

consent. That's right. Okay, maybe just wave to your

librarian from across the room. Check out a library book, and as

you are checking the book out, say, I appreciate you. Yeah,

that's okay, though. Thank you for checking me there. Yes,

that's much better. That's much better. Could it be so

diplomatic and woke? It's true. I'm the woke. You are the

woke. I do micro Christians against Creek. Oh. God.

Well, everybody's got their micro aggression. I know. I

know. What can you do? You can be better. You can be best.

Be best.

All right, I am reading, I just finished up a people's guide to

publishing. Enter the giveaway now through the 28th Yep. Um,

very good. Still working on the Obelisk Gate. Here's the

problem. You start a bunch of books at once, yeah, they all

take a long time to get through, right? I did finish the road to

Jonestown. Oh, okay. The thing is, like, after a certain point

where I knew it, what happened? I was kind of just like, Okay, I

gotta just get through the end. Because I know,

if you don't know how it ends, maybe Google it before you read

this book, see if you really want to get into it. I wonder if

anyone picked up that book without knowing what happened to

the end. They're just like, look at this guy's hair. He looked

like a nice, charismatic man. Now I'm gonna read about

it's a long book. Oh my god. Can you imagine, like someone I've

met so many kind of, like, ill, not elderly, but older men who

work in business or politics, and they're like, all I read of

biographies of great men. Can

you like, imagine one of those guys just like, picking that up

and being like, there's an entire book about this man on

the cover. He seems great, although it did happy would have

happened during their lifetime. So Well, they probably no way.

Yeah, yeah. And then, oh, here's the thing that I really liked,

is I listened to an audio book by Amy Gentry, yes, who wrote.

So you're wrote the 33 and a third book about Tori Amos boys

for Pele album. She is also a really good fiction writer. I'm

really happy. Yeah, you should last woman standing is her new

book, and it is a

book about a female stand up comic who

meets a woman with some vendettas against the tech

companies that drove her out. Yes, yes, and so she's so the

comic has had, has been driven out of LA and she's kind of

nursing her wounds. And then they meet each other in the bar,

and they kind of develop a stranger's on a train deal, and

it's both satisfying and

complicated, okay, yeah? Because, I mean, on one hand,

you're like, ooh, revenge fantasy, I'm into it, yeah? But

then you're also like,

this is a thriller, so I'm supposed to be confused. And it

works, yeah, and it's also kind of funny, yeah? Good, good. I'm

not used to thrillers like that being funny. I'm used to them

being all like, very serious Gillian Flynn type stuff, sure,

sure. Yeah. Anyway, yeah, well, good. We're both reading books.

I'm proud of us. I'm proud of us. I'm more proud of me than

you, because I'm proud Always read books. I'm proud of you.

Thank you so much. I really appreciate

that. All right. Well, thank you for listening to today's

episode. We were happy to talk to you. We're happy to talk to

Chris. We're happy to talk to about New York pushing out HQ,

two Hell yeah.

So please like and subscribe. Subscribe to our newsletter.

You'll get book recommendations. You'll be the first to know

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like us. On Facebook, hybrid pub Scout, Twitter, at hybrid

pubscout, we're on SoundCloud, player FM, TuneIn, podbean and

apple. So thank you for coming back. Corinne, yes, I thank you

for having me back. I'm sorry it's been such a long absence.

We will never happen again. We all missed you. I missed you

too. I missed all of my faithful listeners.

I'd like to say sorry to all my fans

for leaving them in the lurch.

All right, yeah, so find us online, and thanks for giving a

rip about books. You.

You.