Library Director Shaun Briley

leading the library A one-on-one with Director Shaun Briley

"While the library of the past built a collection, today the library builds a community," said Shaun Briley, who has been director of the Coronado Public Library since the beginning of last year.

Story by KELLY PURVIS • Photos by JOHN GASTALDO

The Coronado Public Library is marking a major anniversary this year. Founded in 1890 the library will be celebrating 130 years. It is therefore fitting that the 2020 Coronado Community Read is Susan Orlean’s The Library Book, an engaging look at the history of the Los Angeles Library – the institution’s history, architecture, leadership and role in the community.

One component of Orlean’s book is a look at the many librarians that have led the Los Angeles Library. In Coronado, our library director for the past year has been Shaun Briley. He stepped into the position January 2019 after the retirement of Christian Esquevin. I checked in with Briley, a native of Amersham, England, (just northwest of London) about his career and his thoughts on the library.

Q. What did you want to be when you grew up? A. I never had any concept of being a librarian when I grew up. It’s not exactly a job with a reputation for glamor or excitement. I wasn’t even a library user. This is something that I have come to relatively late in life and by accident. I was writing marketing articles that sold products to libraries when I started the course work to become a librarian. I figured I might do it for a while, but over 10 years later I am still doing it. This is because the work is so enjoyable and it is so rewarding to be focused entirely on helping people. This is not one of those soulless “cog in a machine” jobs. You are part of the town’s cultural life and it is one of the last ‘renaissance’ jobs, in the sense that you are challenged to do so many different types of work every day, to become expert on any topic at the drop of a hat. Working in an environment intentionally designed to inspire is pretty nice. The Coronado library is a beautiful building set in a park for crying out loud.

The Coronado Public Library is celebrating it's 130th anniversary this year.

Q. What are you proudest of in your career? A. I have not so much pride but gratitude that I have been lucky enough to have a decent career without having to hustle or cajole others to get ahead. As a reporter, the most interesting moment in my career would be going to the war in Iraq with British forces as a reporter for Southern Newspapers. It wasn’t a long deployment and I missed most of the action, but nevertheless it was so out of the ordinary to be transplanted into that situation and environment. To be in and around live fire wakes you up and when you come home the normality seems unreal and somehow missing a point. It is easy to understand how veterans get

From left to right: Eileen Hauser, senior librarian, programs and outreach; Jacqueline Luna, teen librarian; Shaun Briley, director; Chris Morris, head of circulation; and Sonya Palacios, library page.

knocked off kilter. We are setting up a veterans resource center here at the library this year, which is going to try to connect veterans with resources they might not be getting. In terms of my library career, the pinnacle to date is probably being named Library Journal Mover and Shaker in 2016, for a number of innovative projects. Library Journal is the national trade magazine for libraries and the Mover and Shaker is a kind of person-of-the-year award.

Q. Who was your greatest mentor? A. In my 20s, I really looked up to a British writer I met in Spain. He didn’t mentor me, but his life, mostly spent by a pool with a glass of wine in his hand, looked like the way I wanted to live. He and his wife became great friends. Unfortunately, he was an alcoholic and things didn’t end well for him. I

“ The library is now a place of intellectual recreation. ” – SHAUN BRILEY

took that lesson on board, too. He inspired me to get out to Spain where I lived for a while – an experience I wrote about in a tonguein-cheek travelogue that even got a few good reviews when it was published by Random House in 2004, the year I came to California. When I was working in marketing and thinking of jumping over to libraries, I went on a tour of the usually off-limits basement of the old Central Library in downtown San Diego. The librarian who gave that tour was Coronado resident Catherine Greene. She is a smart and funny lady and meeting her convinced me to take the plunge.

It showed me that librarians can be sharp and interesting and not in the least like the stereotype. Later, she was the manager of the La Jolla library and when she retired, I took over there. She also encouraged me to apply for the Coronado position.

Q. What big ideas do you have for the Coronado Public Library? A. People used to come to the library because they wanted to know about something. That happens less now – really hardly at all. These days we go to that great collective information base known as the internet. We aren’t going to uninvent the internet – it is not going away, indeed it is only going to get better and more useful, and libraries have to change.

Now people come to the library because they want to experience life – to read the stories of other

people, to see drama, listen to concerts, have social interactions. The library is now a place of intellectual recreation. Cookbooks do well, biographies, health and lifestyle books – ‘how to live’ stuff – and in particular fiction. The human brain works in narratives and the reading of stories that put us in the shoes of others in whom we see similarities with ourselves is a human need. There is a scientific school called bibliotherapy that describes the psychological benefits of finding oneself in fictional characters.

There are swathes of our collection that aren’t used at all – take the reference collection for instance. We need to stop buying it and redirect our focus. For those that are worried about ‘lost books,’ it is worth pointing out that books are both perishable and replenishable. There are zero books in today’s library that were in the 1890 version of the library and few that were in the 1970 version.

Also, while the library of the past built a collection, today the library builds a community. The library is a connecting point in Coronado, where residents connect with each other and local groups connect with their audiences. That is a role we need to focus on. The Winn Room is an important resource for the Coronado community but it could be expanded and improved.

Just as retail is trying to adapt to online sales by offering customers an “experience,” we have to do the same thing. I see this as a positive development, not a threat, and we are in great shape. There are over 14,000 active library card users at the Coronado library, a huge chunk of our population. We are a vital meeting space for several local organizations.

Another ‘big idea’ for the

Q. What has surprised you most about Coronado? A. The most surprising thing to me about Coronado is the way it manages to maintain a small-town atmosphere in the midst of the eighth largest city in the nation. It’s like San Diego just isn’t there. The extent to which the library is at the literal and proverbial heart of the town is also a nice surprise.

The 2020 Coronado Community Read book is about the library fire in Los Angeles.

Coronado library will be joining a cooperative with other libraries in the region so that instead of 100,000 or so books being available with a Coronado library card – the books on our shelves – there will be literally millions of unique titles available. Patrons will be able to come to the Coronado library or our website, find just about any title and be able to check them out here for no cost. This is something that we will be doing in 2020 as I just successfully applied for and won a grant from the California State Library to finance it.

Q. Hardback, paperback or e-book? A. I read them all and it is the circumstance that determines the preference. For instance, an e-book is great in bed at night when you are in a dark room next to someone who is sleeping but a nice hard back is better when sitting in the yard on a Sunday afternoon.

Q. What is the funniest or most unusual thing that has happened to you as a librarian? A. Libraries are a magnet for eccentrics and would make a great setting for a sitcom featuring the staff, the ‘regulars’ and a peppering of interesting folks passing through. The most amusing reference question I have had since coming to Coronado was a lady who asked me in all seriousness if I could help her find a rich husband.

Q. What is the role of the library? A. The library offers a human connection you can’t get on the internet. Talking to a librarian is like having your own personal assistant right there. Another great thing about libraries is standing in a space that contains a microcosm of the world of human thought in a curated and coherent fashion all around you. This creates a magical atmosphere that any library user has experienced and will understand. Just as with shopping in a store, people often come in not looking for one particular thing and there is something about shelf browsing that will always offer something different to web browsing with its narrowly focused algorithms. • Kelly Purvis is the arts administrator for the city of Coronado.