Since 1996, I have been a Louisville Free Public Library employee. I started as a page at the Shawnee Branch. I worked as a clerk for the Crescent Hill and Middletown branches as well as a Library Clerk-Technical Service for the Collection Services department at the Main Branch for 10 years. I’m currently a Teen Services Library Assistant at the Newburg Branch Library. I have a Bachelor of Science in Justice Administration from the University of Louisville and am currently working towards my Master degree in Library Sciences through the Florida State University.
My favorite books to read are Mysteries, Teen Fiction, Urban Literature, and True Crime Non-Fiction. I like to think of myself as a connoisseur of books and look forward to sharing with you some of my favorites.
I started my relationship with the Louisville Free Public Library at the Shawnee Branch when I was a preschooler. I have been an employee for more than 20 years. I have worked as a children’s Librarian at Bon Air Regional and Highlands-Shelby Park branch, and as manager of the Westport Middletown, and Crescent Hill branches. I am now the manager of Collection Services. I help select fiction, mysteries and best sellers for the library and chair the book discussion kit committee.
I read a lot of contemporary literary fiction, mystery and biography. I belong to two book clubs. I have kept a list of all the books I’ve read over the last decade and wish I had always done so.
In college I discovered my ideal read is the 19th century novel (Austen, Dickens, Eliot, Hardy, Tolstoy, Twain, etc.) Someday I want to take up residence on a desert island to read more of these tomes.
I began working in a school library at seven years old, I dusted the shelves. I later terrorized a variety of library staff at the Enoch Pratt Library in Baltimore, until they were happy to see me leave. My retribution was to become a children’s librarian. In the last thirty odd years, I have worn every hat from page to branch manager, in libraries, but my favorite hat is the one I wear now serving children and teens. I am a storyteller by nature, so for me the heart of a book is its plot. It has to tell a good believable tale. Secondly its voice, the writing, has to hold my attention, which is probably why I gravitate towards books for the under twenty crowd. They are a hard bunch to flim flam.
My main fare is literature for children’s and teens, while on occasion I do pick up a book for grown-ups if it is one that some of my teens are gravitating towards, usually it has more than a pinch of sci-fi fantasy elements. So, surprise, surprise my favorite genre is sci-fi fantasy materials; but I do read out and out horror (i.e. zombies) mysteries, paranormal (ghosts) and a touch of contemporary. Technology is starting to creep into our world of literature, which I love, and so I spend time reading and listening to books on a Kindle and an iPad. In the last year or so, it has also started making inroads into how we read/see books. A couple of my favorites actually come to life on the pages when you pair the book and an iPad. My personal collection of books at home range from some 1930’s Nancy Drew up to and including James Patterson’s “Confessions of a Murder Suspect.”
Ah books, the best friend to a glasses-wearing, life-questioning, loud mouthed kid. Said love has continued, and flourished, into my adulthood. Now books put food on the table, in addition, to being...well, it's sad to continue to refer to them as "friends," but you get the idea. Books are my life. My business. My cure for boredom.
In the past few years graphic novels and teen literature have become a real passion of mine. I have a love/hate relationship with teen literature (whoa, flashbacks to middle and high school!), and a borderline obession with finding new and unusual graphic novels. I love what I do, and I love that people are finally asking for my opinion!
For several years I’ve been sharing my love of books by working with children at the Louisville Free Public Library. Before that, I sold records at ear X-tacy, made smoothies, and played violin in a rock band. But after earning a Masters of Education with a focus on Literacy, I decided to try a different route.
My job entails getting to drive the spectacular Children's Bookmobile to schools and child care centers all around town, showing off our fancy touchscreen computers, attempting to help kids with their Algebra 2 homework, and connecting families with the perfect bedtime book to take home. Bring your kids to Storytime at the Main Library sometime and say hello!
I'm an LA at the Main Library and, as such, am one of the lucky few in life who actually get to work their dream job. I love doing reader's advisory because I have a knack for finding hidden gems on the shelf - great books that, for one reason or another, got overlooked when they were released and are just waiting for the appreciation they deserve. My tastes are eclectic - I love everything from graphic novels (but NO Manga!) to Herculean reads like Wallace's "Infinite Jest." You want a great read, follow me - I'll steer ya right.
As the son of a retired public elementary school librarian, I have grown up surrounded by books, captivated by their myriad characters and stories. Progressing through my education, I continued to spend an ever greater amount of time in libraries, culminating in my working for the Louisville Free Public Library beginning in 2001. Graduating from the University of Kentucky with my Masters of Library and Information Science in 2004, my first assignment as an official librarian was the Crescent Hill Branch Library, where I continue my work today. Counted among my most favorite duties here are readers advisory and the book discussion group. Although I have read mainly nonfiction in the past, my diet of fiction has steadily increased and continues to do so as time goes by.
Simon is a part-time clerk at the Main Library. Before that she was a page at the Bon Air branch. Before that she sold books and music. Prior to that she was a barista before most folk knew what a barista was. Simon has worked the usual odd jobs and attended a fair number of universities.
Simon believes the short story is like a good breakfast: readily consumed and sustaining. Simon believes in a recommended daily allowance of poetry for it is our bread, made of milk and honey. Simon also believes poetry can be found in a shopping mall if you listen well enough.
Simon believes in the percussive glory of Mamet and Sorkin, and that Peter Berg, Joss Whedon and David Milch are national treasures. She also likes Elmore Leonard and a mess of so-called Southern writers.
Her desert island books are Moby-Dick, The Collected Works of Shakespeare (preferably her own hideously notated Riverside), and The Holy Bible. If Simon could be anyone in history, she’d choose Montaigne or Abigail Adams.
If Simon isn’t at the library she’s describing the merits of a hickory-handled hammer, volunteering with a CSA, walking dogs, or herding cats. Sometimes she talks to her garden putto, Raphael, while awaiting the midnight mosey of opossums.
Hi, I’m Tommy. I’ve been a Library Assistant with LFPL for over 11 years now. I was at the Iroquois Branch for three years and have been at Main for over 8 years. I am a lover of nature and books, and an avid hiker and walker. I enjoy travelling to writer’s birthplaces and checking out dusty Used Bookstores. I love music and trying to figure out the sources of Bob Dylan’s lyrics and led me to literature. My reading tastes are all over the place, from poetry, fiction, non-fiction, to bios. Favorite literary groups are the Beats, The Angry Young Men, and The Lost Generation. Favorite writers are Jack Kerouac, Thomas Wolfe, Henry Miller, Charles Bukowski, Hunter S. Thompson, William S. Burroughs, Gregory Corso, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and many other poets. I read mostly dead writers.
Tony lives and works in Louisville, KY, as a Library Assistant and always carries a book with him wherever he goes. He is an avid reader with eclectic tastes across the spectrum of fiction and non-fiction. Urban Fantasy novels, Graphic Novels that don't suck, and pop-culture blogs heavy on discussions of music are perennial favorites.
Tony is the moderator for the Readers Corner and LFPL's Graphic Novel Discussion Group which meets the second Monday of every month as of May 2012.
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