Libraries have become a huge part of my life. They always have been.

People sometimes ask how I ended up becoming a librarian. Colleagues ask. Patrons ask. Friends ask.

I always tell them the same story.

When I was a kid, my best friends were my sister and Mouse. We’d disappear into the stacks together and do exactly the things you weren’t supposed to do. We’d sneak snacks, settle into a quiet corner, and disappear into stories.

I’ve always thought that was the perfect use of a library.

Libraries are strange places. They have a way of dissolving time and space until all that’s left is imagination, observation, and reflection—three things I seem to organize much of my life around.

Working in libraries hasn’t changed that belief. If anything, it’s strengthened it.

Part of the reason I share so openly is because I don’t think of myself as library police. I don’t create rules for how people should engage with imagination. I don’t decide what someone should wonder about.

I’m simply a host.

The library belongs to the people who walk through its doors. My job is to help them find what they’re looking for—or sometimes, the thing they didn’t know they needed until they stumbled across it.

Sometimes that thing is a book. Sometimes it’s a quiet place to think. Sometimes it’s just a place to sneak a snack.

My personal library is a little different.

Its shelves are filled according to curiosity rather than any system. Books. Comics. Old magazines. Things that might make your grandma clutch her rosary. Folklore. Anthropology. Architecture. Fantasy. Strange ideas. Beautiful ideas. Contradictory ideas.

I collect the things that make me stop and wonder about the world.

Someone once said that books let you live hundreds of lives.

I think that’s true.

Maybe that’s why I keep collecting them.

If you’ve wandered this far and something on my shelves catches your curiosity, you’re welcome to ask about a library card at the Front Desk. I’d be happy to share a few of the quieter shelves.