Talking About My Prison Librarian Work as a Podcast Guest
A little while back, I went to this author festival going on at a nearby public library which included a panel of authors talking about the art of storytelling. In one of my questions to them, I casually mentioned the writing club I am hosting this quarter as a prison librarian, and that immediately peaked their interest. To be fair, you don’t run into many of us!
Afterwards, one of the panelists came up to me and mentioned a podcast they co-host about various interesting subjects they run across, called Curious Conversations, and she wanted to know if I would like to be a guest on there. Since I’m making a blog post about it now, obviously I said yes, and here is how it went!
One area that I think libraries as a whole can improve upon is our marketing. In recent years, I would argue that library marketing has gotten significantly better, and we have experts like Angela Hursh and Ned Potter talking about different aspects of it. However, there still seems to be room for improvement. I can’t tell you how many times I run into people who haven’t been to a library since they were a kid, have no clue what libraries today look like, and/or don’t know what a profession like librarianship really does.
Marketing is a skill I definitely want to hone in on as an early-career librarian, and being a guest on a podcast felt like a great opportunity to practice that! I am always curious what kinds of questions folks have who are not as involved with libraries, and I think it really gives us insight into the types of stories and information the general public would really benefit from hearing to better understand how we serve our communities.
I think this is also why I love the idea of more MLIS students and library workers making content online. From social media to personal blogs to podcasts and more, these online spaces give us such a unique opportunity to connect with our patrons and the broader community of (both current and hopefully future) library users. At the end of the day, we are technically “selling” something like any other marketer, but the product is an invaluable, community-building resource that folks are already supporting in part through their tax dollars. We aren’t asking them to to pay a cent to walk through those doors. This is something people genuinely want to hear about!
All of that to say, I really enjoyed being on this podcast, and I would be happy to be a guest on more in the future as the right opportunities come along! Perhaps I’ll get better at ironing out all those “ums” before the next one, though 😉
Till next time,
Sam
