One of the first libraries Melissa McCollum ever visited was in the town of Bowen, Illinois, where her grandmother lived.
“She would come back with a big stack of Harlequin romances,” McCollum recalled with a smile, inside her office in the Manhattan Beach library.
There was also the public library in Des Moines, Iowa, where she grew up.
“I loved being able to go off and pick out what I wanted,” she said.
Now, McCollum is in charge of her own library. On January 4, she became the new managing librarian of the Manhattan Beach branch of the County of Los Angeles Public Library.
She applied for the job while working at the West Hollywood library, where she’d been for a year and a half.
It’s not the first time McCollum, who has lived in Manhattan Beach since 1999, has worked at the Manhattan branch. Her first job as a public librarian was in the old building, which was torn down to make way for the new library, which opened in May.
McCollum credits her mother, who was a high school English teacher, in part with inspiring her to become a librarian.
“She taught me about the inequities in access to education,” she said. “Public libraries are a great way to equal the playing field and help everybody get the educational experience they should have.”
After graduating from Dartmouth College, McCollum moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan, where she worked at Shaman Drum Bookshop, an independent bookstore, first selling textbooks, and then running the store’s programming.
“It was the first place I worked where people loved, valued, wrote, and fought about books,” she said. “It’s also where I learned how to create a space where community members can and want to interact.”
She attended the University of Michigan, where she earned a Master of Science and Information and worked at the school of public health’s library.
In 1999, a friend convinced her to move to Los Angeles.
“He attended a party on the beach in Manhattan Beach and didn’t want to go anywhere else,” she said.
She began working as an archivist at Toyota and then moved to the library at 21st Century Fox, which documented the production of the studio’s movies.
“It was a great way to learn about the early days of LA,” she said.
In 2005, she began working for the county public library at the old Manhattan Beach library. From there, she went to the Lawndale library for seven years and then West Hollywood, whose library was designed by the same architects who did the new Manhattan Beach library, Johnson Favaro.
Although it may seem natural that she works in the same city in which she lives, it’s actually unusual in the 85-branch system with almost 1,500 employees.
“It could only happen in Des Moines, where I grew up, or here,” said McCollum.
When she worked in Manhattan Beach the first time, she started a Coffee and Classics film club. She has similar ambitions for programming the second time around.
She is working on is a partnership with the Hermosa Beach and Redondo Beach libraries in which all three cities read the same book and then participate in related events. The first book is “Plastic Ocean: How a Sea Captain’s Chance Discovery Launched a Determined Quest to Save the Oceans” by Charles Moore. Moore will give a talk at the library on April 18 and there will be a coordinated community service project.
McCollum also wants to bring more events and activities to the library. She’s planning a master class series in which local experts speak to kids about their fields; at the moment, she has chefs and professional athletes in mind.
McCollum believes the mark of a good library is how well it reflects its patrons.
“I think the best libraries and librarians are ones who focus on the community, find what they need and deliver whatever they need,” she said.
At the Lawndale library, she said they helped people find jobs and worked on “healthy living initiatives” which the city and community were interested in. At the West Hollywood library, it was making the library more user-friendly to older people and cultural activities.
She recalls two stories she heard from fellow librarians at a county-wide meeting about how they were able to help patrons. One librarian said she helped a homeless woman use Facebook to find her son, who then sent the woman a bus ticket so they could reunite.
Another librarian recalled how a 19-year-old who dropped out of school to take care of his family became the first person to earn a high school degree through a pilot program offered by the county library called Career Online High School.
“I do feel like libraries change people’s lives,” said McCollum.
She’s familiar with the refrain that libraries are becoming obsolete, mentioned at least once while the county was constructing the new library.
“I’ve had the conversation many times,” she said. “If someone hasn’t been in 30 years, it’s a much different model.”
She said she’s been impressed at how well-used the new library has been.
“We’re well on our way to having 200,000 visitors since it opened,” she said.
In addition to residents, architects and librarians come just to view the building.
As at the previous library, the children’s area and toddler story time are very popular. At times, over 40 children come to story time, plus their parents and caregivers.
According to Councilmember David Lesser, who is on the County Library Commission, one of the reasons the city needed a new library was that the one-room space and the popularity of the children’s programs at the old library made it difficult for adults to work.
The new library is divided into the children’s section downstairs, and the adult’s area upstairs.
McCollum said the new library’s second-floor “study rooms are constantly in use” by people holding business meetings or students studying for finals or practicing group presentations.
She is also impressed at how frequently the public meeting room is rented out by community groups.
The library, she said, is “already kind of a community hub.” ER
