John Jermain Librarian Wins Diversity Internship

Nancy Myers, 33, met Catherine Creedon, the former director of the John Jermain Memorial Library, when she was a patron and the library was in its temporary quarters on West Water Street during a major renovation.

Creedon took a shine to Myers, telling her, “I’d hire you in a minute,” Myers recalled.

“I didn’t really have a plan,” said Myers, who was working at Sag Harbor Industries and had not finished high school. “Cathy is really the one who pushed me in the direction of library science.”

With Creedon’s backing, Myers obtained her GED and landed a part-time job on the library’s staff in 2016. She has been attending classes at Suffolk Community College, from which she plans to graduate this spring. Her plans include getting her bachelor’s degree and then obtaining a master’s degree in library science.

This month, Myers, a Montaukett Indian, has been named the inaugural recipient of the Long Island Library Resources Council’s diversity internship. The program is intended to address the dearth of non-white staff members at libraries across Long Island.

Myers, who lives in Riverhead, will dedicate 15 hours a week for the next 16 weeks, working at LILRC’s Bellport office and shadowing staff members at libraries across Long Island.

A week into her internship, under the direction of LILRC’s communications and outreach director, Sally Stieglitz, Myers has already been invited to shadow staff members at two public libraries and one college library. She will visit the Sachem Library, which has its own sound studio and where she will assist in the recording of a podcast, and she will take part in a children’s story time and shadow the children’s librarian at the Westhampton Beach Library. She will also spend time in the library at one of the Suffolk Community College campuses, although her assignment has not yet been finalized.

“There will be more opportunities for her to visit other libraries,” Stieglitz said. The program, she added was designed to “reach out to people who are underrepresented in the profession and we have targeted candidates who are at the college level when they are ready learn about it as a profession.”

“It’s an amazing opportunity, and we are really proud of Nancy,” said Kelly Harris, the library’s new director. “It has become very clear to libraries that were not doing enough to address issues of diversity, equity and inclusion on our staffs. We are really good at reaching out to different communities, but when you look around the staff room, you realize there are some people you don’t see.”

Myers is currently a circulation clerk at John Jermain, who also works with social media, producing program fliers, and posting online. She said part of the joy of working at a small library is that she gets to try her hand at a variety of things. Once she finishes her undergraduate studies, she said she plans to obtain her master’s in library science.

“Any way I can support the library, I’m here for it,” she said. “I think of my job as that of a public servant.”