 Hello, my name is Kim Doherty and I'm the career advisor for the San Jose State University High School. I'd like to welcome you and welcome our guest, Michelle Jeske, to this career podcast. Michelle is the Denver City Librarian and just recently became the former president of the Public Library Association. She's had a fascinating career in the entire public library sphere, which those of us in Colorado have had the good fortune to benefit from in many, many ways, I might add. With that introduction, Michelle, I'd like to welcome you to this podcast and start asking you some questions. Wonderful. I'm looking forward to it, Kim. Thanks for the opportunity. Great. Okay, so first question. As the Denver City Librarian, could you describe what you see as some of the most important aspects of your role? That is a great question. I think probably first and foremost, as the head of a large organization, it's about relationship building in the community at large with other community leaders, and particularly in our case as an independent agency of a city government, relationship building with the city. And that's really about making sure that we're getting the support that we need for the current work at hand, making sure that we're developing the partnerships to help the community and the city do their work, and then thinking to the future and making sure that I'm doing the kind of advocacy that will be needed to ensure the sustainability of our future work. So that's the first thing. I think related to that, but slightly different, is helping people understand the importance of the library, what we actually do and why it matters. And then internally, it's really about setting the vision and the direction for the organization. So the staff know where we're going, why we're doing the work that we're doing, and helping them understand what their role in that work is. And then I have an executive team. So in addition to being the leader of the whole organization, I have my own team that I need to help grow and nurture, and I spend time helping them make sure that we're keeping the big picture in mind that we're making strategic decisions, reminding ourselves that we're essentially running a pretty large business and not getting too bogged down in all of the details and empowering my directors to report to me to help empower their managers and other supervisors to make some of those more detailed decisions. So I guess the idea of trying to help the team keep their eye on the ball, which is further out and not just what is right here in front of us at the moment. So I think those are kind of the four big things that take up a lot of my time. That must be an interesting challenge in many ways, but also because in a city as large as Denver, your branches have such different communities. That's so true. And so, you know, my role in the executive teams role is to set that larger vision and direction for the organization. We have a strategic roadmap that outlines objectives and things that we'd like to see happen, but nobody knows their communities better than the staff who work in those neighborhood branches. And so within the framework of the of the roadmap, they have the flexibility to be able to pivot and meet the individual needs that they're seeing within their own communities. You know, an example might be that we don't do some of our programs for immigrant and refugees in every one of our 26 locations. We're only doing that work where we see the need. We we target our work around older adults in the neighborhoods where we see more older adults coming to use the library, just as a few examples. But that makes a lot of sense. So it's almost a combination of a centralized vision, a decentralized community response. Yeah, I think that's great to describe it. That's that's very cool. And although I've had what I would consider a fantastic benefit of watching your career trajectory through the DPL system, could you tell the students a little bit about what your various jobs and responsibilities have been while you've been at DPL, sort of where you started and then how you moved through the system? Because I know for students, a lot of times it is difficult for them to understand how do you get from where you start to to a leadership role or a management role? And and you've had a very what would I call it? I would say you have been thrust into a lot of different opportunities where it was sort of a case of nobody sort of knows what we should do here. Let's throw Michelle at and you would step in and create these wonderful outcomes. So if you could talk a little bit about sort of your path from where you started at Denver Public Library to ending up being the Denver City Library. Sure. And if it's OK, Kim, I would go a little bit further back because absolutely. Yeah, thank you. So I would suggest that I have a fairly non-traditional path to where I am. And I didn't start off wanting to be a city librarian or a director that just had never even occurred to me when I came out of library school. So I I do want to talk about some jobs before DPL, because it's directly related to to how I got here. Terrific. So my first professional job was at the New York Public Library, and I had I worked in three different branches there. So and I say that because I've never been on the front lines or in what we would call public service at Denver Public Library. But that's where I started. And I learned so much working at the New York Public Library about what being a public librarian actually means. And I learned a lot about reference and readers advisory. And it was a phenomenal experience from there. I went to the San Antonio Public Library. Oh, and I should say I took on a supervisory role before I left New York Public. And then I stepped into a brand new Central Library at the San Antonio Public Library. Their Central Library was built and opened the same year as the one here in Denver. And so they expanded their staff a lot. And I took on a supervisory role in a department of the Central Library there in the reference department. And I did that for a while. And then I'd gotten some experience with very, very early web development at New York Public when they're really we weren't even really talking about graphical user interfaces. And so that was helpful when I was in San Antonio because I let folks know I had that experience and helped create the first volunteer voluntary staff committee of folks to help develop a website for San Antonio Public Library. And that soon became a role that I took on full time and moved out of the reference department and started helping select databases and set up the first internet training program there and developed a team that that kind of was part of the burgeoning virtual world that that libraries were just starting to explore. And then I had a wonderful opportunity to try something completely different and here in Denver. And I was hired to be a product manager at an integrated library system that was then called the Carl Corporation and is now part of the TLC Corporation. And so I ridiculously decided to move to Denver and try something that was totally outside of my comfort zone and an expertise which seems to be part of my DNA. And I boy, did I learn a lot there, including that I really needed to be in public service and not work for a corporation. But I learned a ton about vendor relations from the vendor side of things and about customer service from the vendor side of things and about where web development and ILSs were heading. So it was a very, very beneficial experience that helped me with my career at DPL. But as I said, it really wasn't the right fit for me. And so I just another trend in my life is just being lucky. I think being lucky and also being open to change and and growth. I just happened to really be ready to move on when the perfect job opened up at Denver Public, which was to start their first web development team, like an actual team and not just a volunteer staff committee. So I came in and created a team and took on some of the electronic collection development work and just kind of kept expanding my portfolio. I did some supervision of ILL for a while and over time became a manager and helped create the Community Technology Center, which was our first really big lab to support people with the digital divide at the Central Library. And we got the ideal labs, our makerspaces going and some other things, I guess, in between there. And then I had my predecessor in the last job that I had decided to retire. So I became the interim director of collections and technology. I think it was at the time. And boy, that was an interesting period. So I was the interim director of collections and technology for a while, and it was during the last recession. And I ended up having to do that job and my manager job for a very long time because we just simply couldn't couldn't hire people. And it was a fascinating time to be on the executive team for a lot of reasons. We had a lot of projects in the hopper, including designing new libraries. So I got to be a part of those experiences. We were implementing RFID and tagging all the items in our collection. And so I really got the experience to be able to work with the city attorney's office and deal with very large contracts and really large projects. It was a wonderful experience. So when I was able to apply for that job, I did. And I got it and I had that for for quite a while. And it really enjoyed being on the executive team and working on really neat projects. I also added the word innovation to my title at some point and started helping the library really think about design thinking and how to do strategic planning and inclusive planning differently. And that kind of set me up for, I guess, starting to think about whether I wanted to go for the top leadership job. Because, as I said at the beginning, I really hadn't planned on that. I just had many opportunities available to me to learn and grow and try new things. And our city librarian at the time told me that she would be retiring and she told everybody else on the team, too, it was a competitive process to really think about what I wanted to do and what I wanted to learn to make sure that I would be as ready as possible when that time came. So I took every opportunity I could to do professional development and really take on assignments well outside of my sphere of normal duties. And so when she did retire, as they tend to do with these kinds of roles, I hired a search firm and a national executive search firm and I put my hat in the ring and went through an arduous process to get this job and I've been grateful to have it. I've been in the role six years now. And I think so many things that I've been able to do throughout my career have been really helpful in this particular role with these set of responsibilities. So I'm very grateful. It's interesting when someone has had as an eclectic a career as you have had in terms of different kinds of work that you've done, how they all thread an interweave eventually to create someone who has a really broad knowledge base, which I think to your point about being open to learning and growing and trying new things, that's how you end up with such a broad expanse of not just expertise but view. You look at libraries and the role of libraries and even the library in Denver more broadly than someone else who had just had a more narrow path, which I tend to think is really terrific. And as part of DPL being in a major city, the central library is located downtown right next to a large park with a substantial population of people who are experiencing homelessness. Some of them also have substance abuse challenges. I know and I know a lot of people know that you have had drug overdoses in the library because it's gotten a lot of media coverage. It sounds like a really challenging situation. Can you tell us how you've handled that? It has been and continues to be a challenging situation. We like to say that public is our middle name and so anything that's going on in the public or in society is bound to happen in the library because everyone is welcome and that is one of our five values is welcoming. And so we do welcome everybody, whether they are housed or unhoused, whether they have substance misuse challenges or not. All ages, all creeds, everybody. And so when you're that welcoming, it means that sometimes behaviors can happen in the library that are not allowed. And so that's really I would say we have a multi-pronged approach. One is that we have a library use policy as most hopefully all libraries have. And behavior is or is not allowed. And so that's what we try to focus on, not whether people have homes or whether they have behaviors, I guess, not behaviors, but addictions that are that are hurting them themselves. It comes down to the library use policy. And so behavior is when we see it, that's not allowed. It's not allowed. But that that sometimes means removing people for the day or means some some very hard conversations and some difficult situations. So we have had overdoses inside and outside of the library. We as opioid use and honestly all sorts of challenging drug use has escalated in our country. We're seeing more of that activity. And we're seeing it not just at the Central Library, but we're seeing evidence of the use of needles around the community, which is really concerning. Also seeing more people experiencing homelessness in parts of the city that we've never seen them in before because of the skyrocketing costs of housing here. So what what has been mostly centered in the urban core of big cities, I think, across the country, we're seeing sort of spread even out into the suburbs to the point where some suburban libraries are hiring social workers as well. Wow. So first and foremost, library use policy, making sure that we're adhering to it. But then we have a group of social workers. We have four of them. And then we have they also have a team of peer navigators. So those are people with lived experience. They may have experienced themselves. They may have their own substance challenges, any number of things. And so that the role of that team is to help. Build relationships with people, make referrals to them, do warm what they call warm handoff. So not just handing somebody a card with a phone number, but trying to make connections for whatever that person might need in the moment. They help deescalate situations along with our security staff. And then they provided training for the rest of our staff on how to think about things from a trauma informed lens, how to deescalate situations, how to think about mental health, differently, things like that. We also were probably one of the first libraries to to develop a pretty robust Narcan program. So we have hundreds of staff that have been trained, including myself on how to administer naloxone in case that we experience a situation where we see somebody overdosing in front of us. And unfortunately, we've had to use that quite a few times during covid when we weren't open, obviously, those numbers went down. But it didn't mean that the overdoses weren't happening in the community. They just weren't happening in the library. Yeah. And then I guess the other part of it is that we are part of many meetings and part of a collective impact effort. Actually, a couple, one specifically on opioids within the city and a bunch of nonprofits. But then I'm on the mayor's homelessness cabinet. So making sure that the library is at the table to take part in conversations about how to be humane about these things, but also to talk about the very real challenges that we're experiencing, which are resource intensive. That's interesting because normally you wouldn't think of or we wouldn't think of having to include solutions for addressing social issues as part of a budget allocation. But clearly, it does have major budget implications. And to your point about having a seat at the table, the only way the city would know that and the city stakeholders would be if you did have a seat at the table and were able to make that point. That is fascinating. So now I'm going to if it's OK, I'm going to pivot you a little bit and ask about your career progression, which actually we've we've had a good opportunity to talk about a bit. But here's my question. The first job you landed after graduating with your MLIS, what was that job and how did you land it? Yeah, this is kind of funny. So I went to the University of Washington for grad school and so, of course, that's in Seattle and I graduated in the early 90s when everybody thought Seattle was the place to be. Oh, yeah. Very competitive, like insanely competitive job market. There were a lot of librarians from California that were taking entry level jobs. It just was a very difficult time for somebody with very little experience. You get a job and we loved it there and it was it was really tough. So I participated. I did some interviews on campus and the New York Public Library came to campus to do some recruitment. And I had no. I had no intention of moving to New York City. I just thought it would be great experience. And it is, I would advise doing this. You just put yourself out there and get some experience interviewing builds your confidence for one thing. And so they offered me a job. And I really, I'll just be honest, I didn't have any other offers and my husband's an artist. And he thought, well, he could go to the Art Students League. So we just up and move from Seattle to Brooklyn. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. That's how I landed my first job, kind of on a lark. Really, you know, I tell people now I didn't know where I was going to work. I it's so it was I don't know if they still do it this way there. But you you just apply and you get it accepted. And when I got there, they told me where I was going to work. So I was so lucky. Oh, my gosh. Offered, not offered, told me at the Jefferson Market Branch Library in Greenwich Village. I mean, how fun. Yeah, what a gift. And it really was a gift. So that's yeah, that's how that happened. I am mentally envisioning living in Seattle and then moving to Brooklyn to talk about a culture shift, shall we say? Yes. And there's a reason that we were only there like two and a half year. We're more Midwest slash West Coast people. Great experience. But I knew I knew moving there. We weren't going to be living in New York for forever. Cool. What an experience. So another question that sort of related to from then to now, what are some from your perspective? What are some of the most important skills that you've had to learn since grad school to adapt to new job demands or opportunities? Because one of the things that I think students need to become comfortable with is they've done all this studying, they have gotten their degrees, and that's terrific and worth real for them. But basically that's just the start. They've got for the rest of their careers, they have things that they will be learning in order to remain competitive, in order to be able to contribute to the profession and their constituents at their highest level. So for you, what have some of those skills looked like? Yeah, I think that is so important. And as you were saying that, I was thinking how important professional development is to me. And, you know, some of that is the traditional means, conferences, workshops, et cetera. But I feel like I learn more by observing and trying things. And so I think about that as I think about answering your question. I don't I had a great experience at the University of Washington, but I didn't really have the opportunity at that time to take some of the classes that might have helped me, that I think that your students probably have the ability to learn now. So I some of the most important skills I've had to learn since grad school are really around management, leadership, strategy, fundraising, team building. How to hire. Oh, yeah. And probably the most important thing, at least at this point in my career, and it is a skill, and I don't think you go to school to learn it. It's just political acumen. I think you learn that by by doing, by observing others by trying things and seeing what does. And what does and then trying it differently the next time. And that's very much in alignment with your mention earlier of design thinking. I kind of look at professional development from the same perspective. And for those of you who are not familiar with design thinking, a very, very streamlined definition is basically figure out what you're trying to do. Come up with an approach to try it. You try it and figure out what worked and what didn't. And then you reiterate you learn from that and then you try again better. And I think when it comes to professional growth and professional development, especially to your point about the political acumen, that very much is learning on the fly. It's it's learning from people who are good at it and watching them. At least it has been from my perspective. And and am I correct in thinking that the entire time that you have been in your role as the Denver City Librarian, we have had the same mayor and that would be Mayor Hancock. That is true. And so I do think about that looking forward because he'll be term limited in twenty twenty three. We'll have a new mayor and we'll have a bunch of new city council members too. And so how interesting it will be a different world, which will be very interesting during my career at DPL. We've had three four mayors, I think. But yeah, I know this mayor really well and I know his team really well. And so I know how to communicate with him. And I'm sure that will be useful going forward, but it'll be getting to know somebody else. And the people they bring in, which will take some more. So over the course of your career, what work have you enjoyed the most or found most rewarding? I couldn't pinpoint one specific role that I've had or even a project. But I really think it's just learning new things, trying new things. I don't know. I've just had, as I said, so much opportunity to pivot and grow and stretch. And maybe I just need change. I don't think I'm somebody who's opposed to change. I just really enjoy trying lots of different things, including some of the things I talked about that are kind of outside of the professional librarian skill set. I that's part of why I like this job because it's so varied, you know, one meeting is, you know, back to back with another and both of them are going to be so entirely different. I do in this role have really enjoyed working more directly with other community members and leaders to learn about their needs and their desires and then figure out how we can work together. And sometimes that's led to building a new library. As an example, we'll be opening a new library here in September. And I've worked on that project for five years and have met a lot of people. And really, it's going to be a word winning, groundbreaking project because we're doing it in partnership with others. And that's just been a lot of fun. That that to me is an interesting trend in public libraries. And it's an interesting and really important opportunities, opportunity for public libraries. I was just reading an article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review. And what they were talking about was how communities identify opportunities for social innovation and who the stakeholders are who can contribute to those initiatives. And I was reading and I kept waiting to see library show. And they they didn't mention libraries. And I kept thinking, boy, you're really missing a huge bet. And I'm guessing that libraries will more and more take those kinds of collaborative, if not leadership roles in their communities as drivers of community development, as drivers of social innovation in their communities, because of their ability to connect all of those different stakeholders. Yeah, I think their ability to connect the stakeholders, the trust that public libraries have in the community and the the knowledge that we have about our communities. We have a lot of information that we can impart to to other organizations to help them with their work. I also think these collaborative projects can. Lift up community innovation. I'm particularly thinking about this project that we're that we're working on that we're about to open. There will be artists on campus and there will be entrepreneurs on campus and with sort of in the wheelhouse of these two other groups that we're working with, and we're hoping to really work with the artists and entrepreneurs to do public programming for others. And then also to help meet the needs of of the artists themselves and the entrepreneurs. So it kind of goes both way. There's stuff we can do to help them, but we can also utilize their skills and knowledge and their connections to to help the broader community. Cool. All right. Now I'm going to ask you to put on your employer hat and because one of the questions students are always curious about and it's important is what are the most important attributes? Let's say in general, from your perspective, a major urban public library would look be looking for in the people at hires. And and I'm thinking here about personal characteristics rather than domain or job specific skills. What would what do you think you would encourage your say branch managers to be looking for? It's such a great question. I think first, probably an understanding of what a modern public library does and an understanding of what an urban community's challenges are. We're looking for people who are curious. We're looking for people who are flexible and open-minded and have a customer service ethic. We really want to see people with a passion and interest to serve the community. People that are people centered. As we try to become more equitable in our work with our staff and our community, we're looking for people that have that mindset of equity. Yeah, I think that pretty much covers it. I think you're right. A lot of it has to do with attitude. Terrific. And how have you seen that change since you were a new graduate just joining the profession? I feel like when I was being interviewed and first starting out, questions were really more around the traditional library skills and knowledge. Domain knowledge. Really, around that, I just don't remember some of the attitudinal and sort of behavioral questions that we ask now. And we, as you said earlier, we still need the skill set that comes from from the the education that your students are getting. But those things can be taught. That's why people go to school for it. And you can't necessarily teach attitude and and fit right. Interesting. OK. And I would say that's the exact same trajectory or shift that I have seen from when I was just entering the profession. It was we were what I would call stuff or material centric. You needed to know about the materials, whereas now the material certainly are important. It's how we do what we do. But on the other hand, the relationship building, the trust relationship, the the empathy, the embrace of equity, all of those sorts of things really are expanding the impact that libraries can have in their communities, I think, and I think that's great. All right. So here's here's the money question. This is what the students all want to know. What advice would you give students still in grad school in terms of positioning themselves for jobs when they graduate? Good question. I wish I thought about this in grad school. Yeah, I know. I know. I did work in a special library in grad school. So I think that helped. But I don't think it helped me with my quest to get a public library job when I lived in Seattle. So, yeah, I think there are things you can do. And I know that some people are holding down full time jobs. And so some of this advice is probably not possible. But I think if it is possible to volunteer at or get an internship at the type of library you'd like to work in, or at least go and observe, especially if you're interested in working in an urban public library, it may not be what you think it is. And I think a really good point, even observing you'll get a sense of whether this is the place for you. I think people should interview people who work there, either if you have your eyes set on a particular institution or just a kind of library, try to set up some informational interviews to find out what it's like to work there and what kind of environment it is. I think there's a lot you can do to just read up on what's happening in the type of library you're working in that you'd like to work in right now. And if there's a particular community that you'd like to be in to just learn as much as you can about the community, I think all of that is going to help you do really well in the interview process. And then if you do get a position there, be better set up for success than kind of coming in cold. Cool, okay. And then last, I'd like to take you back to your previous role of being PLA president. We've just come through this total disruption from the pandemic lockdown. And I use the phrase, we've just come through loosely because we're not really sure if we have come through yet. But it appears to me that libraries did a pretty amazing job of adapting wherever possible to continue to support their patrons and communities. Yet even before the pandemic, libraries had been experimenting with sort of new and innovative ways to increase their community impact. So as someone who sort of was looking at the entirety of the spectrum from large to small and urban to rural and all those things, in public libraries, as you look at public libraries going forward, what do you feel may change? What do you think will probably stay the same? And what opportunities do you see for the future? Okay, and I think, as you said, our whole world has changed, our society, I think even our norms and more have all changed. And it's not just the pandemic, but the recognition of the racism that our country's been founded on and how much further we have to go to challenge inequity. It's how divided our country is. There's just a lot that has happened. And I think, as you said, it's just, it's not over yet. So I am proud of how libraries have responded during this time, all kinds of libraries. I think we've demonstrated we can be very flexible and meet the new needs of our communities. I also think we have a lot of work to do to create new systems that are more equitable for staff and communities. And we have a lot of work to do to break down very old and outdated systems and structures. So I think change is going to need to continue to happen. I guess on a little bit more of a micro level, I think some of the new services are going to stick around. Kerbside pickup is convenient for many. Home delivery is important for those who can't get to the library. Virtual programming has removed barriers for some people. So there's a place for all of that and more as libraries can, I worry about resource limits, trying to add more in a time when frankly a lot of libraries have less. I do think that once it feels safer than it does now, I think we'll see a big shift back toward in-person programming and services because at the end of the day, that's one of the most beautiful things about libraries is how it brings people together. And people do want that, they crave it and they need it when there isn't a pandemic. We know that libraries really are the community center for a lot of people. And that's been partially taken away this last year. So I think that while these new innovations have been great, there's something at the core of what we traditionally do that will remain and probably be a stronger need than ever. I think the other thing that I've been thinking about is I think we're gonna see shorter strategic planning cycles. That's interesting. Yeah, we've just witnessed the world is incredibly unpredictable. I mean, I can't track what's going on with COVID now from day to day and even before then with technology shifts and other societal shifts, they're just, they're happening more quickly. And so I think libraries and all organizations are gonna need to stay as adaptable as we've proven that we have been this last year. I think that core concept of adaptability is so important, but I've never heard it described the way you just did it which is shorter strategic planning. And that makes so much sense because I remember when I was graduating and I was really into strategic planning for what am I gonna do next and what are my career goals and that kind of thing. And what happened was roughly five years after I graduated, the internet arrived and there was literally no way. I could have envisioned such a totally world changing, career changing, library changing disruptive technology. And to your point, technologies are changing. Our assumptions about who we are as a country and what we're expecting of our communities and those sorts of things are changing. And so that shorter strategic planning window seems to be, to me, a great way to be more adaptable because then you are anticipating that there will be change. I think that's a great way of saying it. All right, so anything else you think the iSchool students should know or be thinking about from your perspective? I guess I would just say that you're joining a great profession. I strongly believe that what we do is very important. You literally can help change people's lives in this profession. I also think that our profession is steeped in historic racism and there is a lot of work to do there to break down the structural and institutional racism and that's gonna take time, but it's going to be worth the effort and we'll make the work that we do way more impactful than it already is. So glad you're joining the profession. It's not easy work, especially these days, but it's very, very rewarding and I hope you find it that way as well. And I couldn't agree more. Well, thank you so much, Michelle, for joining us. Thank you for the work that you do and everyone who's listening, get out there and we will follow in Michelle's footsteps. Thanks so much.