Summary:
Anna Koch was interviewed by Brenda Hepler on May 27, 2008. She was born and raised in San Francisco, and became interested in reading and in going to the library at a very young age. After high school she enrolled in a library technology program and worked in a library part-time instead of pursuing a regular college degree. Soon her co-workers convinced her to get a degree in library science, recommending a specific college in Boston. She went on to work at academic and public libraries in the Boston area, then came back to the Bay Area to join the staff of the Contra Costa County Library. The vision and the high level of community involvement behind the new Lafayette Library and Learning Center matched her own sense of what a library should be, so she was excited to become part of this new institution.
Oral History:
Brenda Hepler: What are your first and best childhood memories of the library?
Anna Koch: Probably when I was in my grade school, I went to a Catholic school and they had a library about the size of this office, so eight by ten, and mostly I had no recollection of any kind of series or childhood books or anything like that, and then I stumbled on Nancy Drew, and Nancy Drew just opened up my whole world to libraries and fiction and mysteries, and I’ve got a lifelong fascination with Nancy Drew.
BH: Where were you born?
AK: I was born and raised in San Francisco, and we lived in a small community just on the south side of Mount Davidson and went to a very small, parochial school. It was a very white, blue-collar neighborhood. My father was a postman, my mother was a stay-at-home, it was kind of idyllic, but that first library was my first kind of, my parents did not read to me. They were avid readers, and one of the things that I really so admire today is that parents, we really try to hook up parents with reading to their children from birth on, and I didn’t have that experience, but my parents were both big-time readers. We did not grow up with a TV until, I think, maybe the late sixties, and so reading was something I kind of stumbled across. We were outdoor kids, we just played, that’s what we did. So when I stumbled across the Nancy Drew series, that was it, that turned me into a voracious reader.
BH: That’s good to hear, because so often Nancy Drew’s put down the book, but boy, it turned me on, too.
AK: No, there were so many people, my generation, that was our first heroine. She was the first female figure that we saw, that we read about, that had independence, and had all those things that we cherish today.
BH: Well, that was your favorite childhood book, we know, now for sure.
AK: Nancy Drew! And that led to then other series, of which I can’t remember, but I did, my brothers were reading The Hardy Boys, I was reading, and then just opening the door to then the classics, the Little Women, and then certainly in high school with Jane Austen, and the Bronte sisters.
BH: Did you go to Catholic High School?
AK: No, I actually switched over. My brothers went on to Catholic high school, and my sister and I decided we had enough of Catholic school, and chose to go over to our local public school, which also had a wonderful library, and I just had a wonderful experience with high school librarians, and in fact that’s probably where my library appreciation comes from, is the really good school libraries that we had.
BH: That’s great. So you grew up in the city, and what awareness of community did you have while growing up?
AK: You know, I struggle with that question because I don’t think I had an awareness of community, other than it was our neighborhood, we had, you know, the kids in the neighborhood, we all hung out together, and played together, and slept over each other’s house, and then of course my school was also my community, because those kids I went from pretty much first grade all the way up to eighth grade, and so they were, and then the school, you know, had its own community of, you know, a lot of activities going on, you know, the church basement, and, you know, mass, and cut up, and…
BH: I think your church was a great community in those years, you know, and did your mother participate in any community activities?
AK: She was during, she was somewhat politically involved. She was a real advocate for peace. She belonged to the Women for Peace movement in San Francisco. She worked on some local campaigns, can’t think of his name right off the bat, but, yeah, and there was…
BH: There was, yeah. And in your education, where did you go to school to become a librarian?
AK: Oh, well, after high school, I decided not to go to college, until I realized that, because I really wanted to work. I had been a fairly average student, and had kind of no real ambition, and then about, then when I figured out, in the working world, I wasn’t going to go very far. And talking with other peers, what could I do, and bringing it back to my love of books, somebody mentioned, well, have you thought about libraries? So, in my mid-twenties, the City College of San Francisco had a library technology program, and so that was a two-year program that I went through, and as I was going through that program, I was also working at the San Francisco Public Library, and that’s where I met just truly inspiring librarians, and all of them just said, you’ve got to continue. You’ve just got to continue your education, so then it was going for a bachelor’s degree, which I did, my major there was in history, with a minor in women’s studies, but the whole process led to going to library school, and one of my, just I think of her today, Dottie Meyers sat me down and said, you have to go to Simmons College in Boston, and I said, okay, and that’s what I did. I went to Simmons College in Boston, and I had always wanted to kind of move away and go to college, get that college experience, so I did that in my graduate years in Boston at Simmons, and stayed there for 20 years, worked the Boston Public, then I moved over to the Harvard libraries, well actually before then to the MIT libraries, and then the Harvard, because I thought I was going the academic librarianship route, and about seven years into it, realized that I really missed public libraries, because that’s what I, my first experience at San Francisco Public, and so when the kids came and I decided to work part-time, started working back in the public library, and just it grew from there, and then coming over here, it was, you know, coming back to the Bay Area.
BH: Yeah, wonderful. Mentors are great.
AK: They’re the best. That’s what we try to do also, when we see young kids coming in who we think have just, you know, you can almost see it in their eyes, they just, you know, they love being here. We’re working on one young lady right now who kind of is aimless, doesn’t know what she wants to do, but she loves books, she loves reading, and so we’re talking to her about library school.
BH: That’s great. As an adult, what were your community experiences outside of school, and your job, did you participate?
AK: Yeah, certainly when the kids came, we did a lot with the schools, and then in my work at the Morris Institute Library, which is the public library in Natick, Massachusetts, there was, that had a great sense of community. They were just building a new downtown, and they were building a new civic center and new library, and so working with that community to get that up and running.
BH: And you participated then.
AK: Yes.
BH: Wonderful. So you’re well aware. What attracted you to coming to the Lafayette Library?
AK: Well, I had spent twenty years in the Boston area, and my family was still out here, is still out here. I have three brothers and a sister, and it got to the point where I just felt I needed to get back home and needed to be closer to them, and so kind of a midlife crisis. My husband at that time was looking to kind of change careers and do something at home, and so when we made the move back here, it was to work. I just saw the advertisement for the Contra Costa County Library. It was about a nine-month process. They finally called me, and I flew out for an interview. I knew nothing about Contra Costa County, even though I grew up in the Bay Area.
BH: That’s true.
AK: I knew nothing about it. And so got the job and just decided that we wanted to move out here.
BH: So this is when you came back. Your first job then was at the Lafayette Library?
AK: It was, and the Lafayette Library, I was told in the interview, don’t let it scare you. So I interviewed with Anne Cain and Laura O’Donohue, and at the time, Rosemary Westberg, and Laura pulled me aside and said, now you have to remember Lafayette is building a new library. So the next day when I went to visit the library, the Lafayette Library, I was just, I was mortified. I could not believe that that building was standing. It just was old. And part of that was because I had been in this process of a brand new building, a brand new state-of-the-art library, all the amenities that go with that. And here I was, and I almost wanted to cry because it was so, it was just decrepit. And Laura kept saying, no, don’t worry they’re getting a new library, they’re getting a new library, and it was like, thank God, they’re getting a new library. They need a new library. And that’s what’s been happening in Contra Costa County, is that the communities are realizing that their libraries are outdated. This is, you know, certainly Walnut Creek has moved on for, you know, getting a new library off the ground. Lafayette certainly has. So it’s, you know, we’re in that period again where we’re building new libraries, and that’s a good thing.
BH: And with new visions.
AK: And with new visions, exactly.
BH: Okay. Defining the goals of a community as a place of mutual support, shared values, and acceptance of difference, how did you see Lafayette meeting these goals?
AK: To defining the goals of a community as a place. Yes, I think Lafayette definitely saw in their vision of a new library a place where community would come together. And with this whole, the concept of the consortium, it would, you know, the shared values and the support of having community come to one place. And certainly the partnerships that needed to be built, that I think goes without saying that that was just a, I mean it’s like, duh, why didn’t we think of that before? But the whole idea of partnership. And I think Lafayette, one of the things that astounded me about Lafayette was just the real passion that the leaders had for having this library built. And this idea of a library as a place. And for the community to come and meet and, you know, do all those things that community needs to do. Having a venue for music. Having a venue for political discourse. Having book clubs. And so I think it supports those goals beautifully. And it’s a unique idea with the partnerships and the consortium. And I think other communities are looking at that as we need to be doing that. We need to be doing more of that. So I think Lafayette has definitely risen to the challenge and is meeting that goal.
BH: And then other relative to what you just said was then how do you feel a library serves the community in this way?
AK: I think because they talk about now you hear, you see and you read it in the literature as library as place, as that third place. You’ve got your home, you’ve got your work, you’ve got another place to go and the library fills that beautifully. It’s a community center is really what it is. And so I think some cities struggle with that because I believe in Antioch is an example of where they’re struggling with the idea of do we build a community center or do we build a library? Well, to me it’s one in the same. And I think libraries have, you know, libraries have come a long way. They’re not your stogy, you know, you come in and you’re quiet and you’re shushed by the librarian. But it’s a place where people gather. And there’s lots and lots of activities that support the lifelong learning, that support literacy, early childhood literacy. We see that time and time again in the story times that we offer. And Lafayette’s got the best one of all. And Miss Donna, who, I mean, she brings the community together. So, yeah, the library is definitely a place. And it’s, I think, in our case here in San Ramon also, and this is my experience in Lafayette, was they didn’t have too much trouble finding us. We did not have, I mean, people used our library and used it for, you know, after-school activities with their kids. Certainly Miss Donna’s story time. The books, the Friends of the Library book sale. And so it, yeah, when I think of a library, I think community.
BH: That is wonderful. I think now, because we’re on this subject then, how do you see the role of the librarian changed for this new vision of life?
AK: I think the role of the librarian is more as an outreach person. And one that provides lots and lots of planning for activities, for programs. I think, and we also serve the purpose of research. We certainly have kids who come in and say, I’m trying to do a paper on this subject and I can’t find anything on the Internet. Well, there you go. That’s what we do. We find information. We find viable information, legit information. And we, you know, so we are educators. But we are, we are, we’re out there in the community. My job now has grown from being the manager behind the desk to being out in the community and promoting the library, promoting library services and finding those partnerships with other organizations in the community where we can come together and, you know, and through our resource sharing provide really invaluable information and activities and programs and things that, you know, you pay good money for. And we do it for free.
BH: And relative to the Internet, how do you think the libraries have changed? I mean, obviously they have the computers in the libraries. What role does the library play, short of having no censorship? But, I mean…
AK: Well, we still have to be able to… I mean, we use the Internet to, certainly to provide information. But looking, because the Internet is a free place, we have to be very careful about the information that we’re getting from the Internet. Is it, is it legitimate? Is it, you know, is it… You know, because we have journals and magazines and that’s considered peer literature, then, you know, peer reviewed literature, we don’t have that with the Internet. It’s going to be interesting to see. I think we still are always going to have a role as information providers and whether that information comes out of books, out of journals, out of databases, off the Internet, we’re still going to be the people that they come to, to find out, you know, is this information legitimate?
BH: And how does the librarian go about finding the legitimacy of information?
AK: Understanding how websites work and who can put up what website. I mean you and I can put up a website and… But is it, you know, I mean, is it viable? Is it, you know, going to provide… So, and it’s not to say that there are, I mean, there are a lot of commercial websites up there that provide excellent information. But there are, you know, other ones that are not as… They’re just, you know, they’re problems with that information. With multiple experiences you then become more aware of the stronger and weaker websites. And finding, and that’s why when teachers tell their students, you can’t use the Internet, what they’re saying is you can’t go on to any old website and tell me that that’s the information that supports your theory or your hypothesis. You have to be able to discern if this is information that’s legitimate, if it’s viable, is it biased. So you have to be able to evaluate a website, and I think we still do that very well.
BH: That’s terrific, yeah. Okay, and I think you answered why the new library supports us.
AK: I’m sorry if I sounded a little cruel there, but…
BH: No, I mean, we like honesty.
AK: I almost cried when I walked into that building. I really did, and I called my husband and I said, I don’t know if I can do this.
BH: That’s right, yeah. I really think we’ve answered the questions and just in closing, how do you think this new library will affect Lafayette as a community?
AK: Oh, I think they’re in for an extraordinary time in the library, and we all look forward to being there on opening day. There’s no doubt in my mind that Lafayette loves its library, and what they’re getting in the process is this whole new vision of what a library can be with the idea of the consortium and these organizations coming together in one place to provide programming. It’s just going to build a much stronger community and a much stronger partnership between the schools, the library, the city itself. The other thing that Lafayette has done really well is using their volunteers, and that’s something that when you look at a library that size, you’re going to have to really depend on. We’re now seeing in the literature the baby boomer generation that wants to be involved, and it’s not going to be your father’s retirement. It’s really going to be out there in the community, and this is going to be a wonderful opportunity for those of us who just want to keep our foot in the door and keep active and be active to have a library that has so much going on, just so much going on.
BH: And something for everybody.
AK: And something for everybody is right. So, no, I think it’s really exciting, and we are all kind of waiting to see if this great experiment works. And I, with the leadership in the city of Lafayette and the partnership with the county library system and with this consortium, I just think it’s going to, you know, it’s just going to be a terrific success.
BH: Well, thank you. I really appreciate your time.
AK: And we’re hoping for it here in San Ramon.
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