An interview with Patrick Jones

A guest post by Sara Zettervall (Library Student Journal Editorial Board Member; MLIS Candidate, St. Catherine University; MFA, University of Michigan)

from www.connectingya.com

Patrick Jones works for Hennepin County Library as the Senior Librarian in the Outreach Library. Prior to Hennepin County, he worked at libraries in Michigan, Georgia, Massachusetts, Ohio, Indiana, and Texas. He did everything from shelving books at the tiny Baker Part Library in Burton, Michigan, to serving as Youth Services Coordinator for the huge public library in Houston, Texas. In addition to his day job, Patrick has published multiple professional guides for library service to teens (www.connectingya.com/publications.html) and six young adult novels with Walker Bloomsbury, most recently The Tear Collector (www.tearcollector.com/). He speaks about library services to teens and has delivered presentations in every state. In 2006, he received lifetime achievement awards from the American Library Association and the Catholic Library Association.

How did you get started in young adult services, and in particular how did you get involved with publishing information for YA librarians?

I got started in YA because I wanted to find a niche and had done some work with teens in my first professional library job. I didn’t take a YA course in library school, but found I was able to get up to speed by learning on the job, which was necessary because there was no professional literature out there at the time. I started publishing articles, then books, because I would have a question (what are the best teen magazines?) and find there were no professional tools. I found the answer and then shared it with others.

Were you always interested in writing YA novels? How has your experience as a librarian informed your creative writing?

I always was interested in writing and publishing, which began when I was eight and had a column in a professional wrestling newsletter. I wrote during high school — typical angst poems coupled with punk rock lyrics — but gave it up. Then, in my first YA job, I submerged myself in the literature and found so much of it to be fake, formal, and filled with moral lessons. So, I thought I could do better and wrote the first draft of Things Change in 1987 (although I didn’t publish it until 2004) My experience working in libraries has helped me tremendously in publishing, from not having to hire an agent because I could just hand my manuscript to people I knew from my work on ALA/YALSA committees, to having some understanding of what teens like and don’t like.

What advice would you give to a public library looking to start an outreach program to teenagers from challenging backgrounds, like the one Hennepin County has with the Juvenile Detention Center?

First, there is a small professional literature out there, so look it over. Read what others have done. Second, contact me or someone doing similar work to observe and learn. Third, know that everything you learned in library school about intellectual freedom doesn’t fly once those jail doors close. We are guests and need to abide by the rules of the facility. You do keep seeing the same kids and families repeatedly, and there is not always a great range of reading interests. Yet, it can be wonderfully rewarding work that turns the slogan “libraries change lives” into reality.

What was the most important insight you gained from your education? What was the most important thing you had to learn on the job?

The most important thing I learned at University of Michigan was the potential within the profession. On the job, I learned that the best ways to reach that potential are: first, specialize your skills and develop a niche for yourself, and second, look for opportunities and be assertive. If you don’t want to work the info desk forever, you need to make something happen.

What do you think is the single most important trend or problem facing today’s librarians?

Other than finding a job, the most important trend is wondering if we’re about to go the way of the carriage maker and 8-track tape manufacturer. The profession needs to re-invent itself to remain relevant because the days of the reference desk are over. We do that by dedicating ourselves to serving those who need us the most, like the incarcerated youth and adults who are served by Hennepin’s Outreach Library.

What advice do you have for library students entering today’s library culture?

I think people need to realize that many of us — notice that I include myself — are feeling dazed and confused. We’re dazed because we are nowhere near as busy as we once were with reference desk functions, but we are busy keeping up with the work we have with fewer people on staff. The job that librarians of my generation signed up for is gone, never to return, and we never really mourned that loss. We’re confused because we’re trying to figure out what our role is now. For all the talk of web 2.0 culture, most public libraries are still rigid, top-down organizations. It’s going to be up to the next generation of librarians to determine their role and how to manage a more flexible library structure.

Next week: An interview with co-researchers and University of Illinois LIS faculty members Kathryn LaBarre and Carol Tilley