Westside Makers - Covington

Chris Oaks and Krista King-Oaks the librarians Who are you guys?

K: My name is Krista King-Oaks and I’m originally from Covington, KY, Latonia to be specific. We actually met in high school here.

C: I’m Chris Oaks, also from Covington. And yes, we met in Highschool in marching band. We were both in the drum line.

K: I was actually a flute player at first but I didn’t want to get picked on by my band teacher so I decided ‘They’re all boys in the drum line and I’m going to show him that a girl can do this. I was the smallest one and I held the smallest drum, but that also met that I got to march next to him all season.’ So librarian-ship, I just kind of fell into it.

C: No, that’s not true! You worked at the library at UK, you wanted to go into library work. So we moved to Lexington to go to the University of Kentucky.

K: Well, I actually started working at libraries in Highschool. I thought I wanted to be a teacher. I always gravitated towards kids and their imaginative, creative spirit. I was volunteering working with middle school students at the library. I was the only person that showed up and I just stayed long enough that they were just like ‘Hey why don’t you work here?’ and they really mentored me all through college.

I spent a couple years at UK and then I realized that I just didn’t like the structure and the bureaucracy of the school system but I still wanted to teach and work with kids so it was then that I decided to get on the path to become a children’s librarian.

It has been wild how the libraries are just transforming. It’s been a really interesting time to get into the field.

C: I think we enjoy challenging of the perception of libraries though. Now libraries are loud and they are more like community hubs. Of course, it’s not just about books anymore. If there’s any one big point I can make it is that we’re they type of librarians where Krista is more childhood education and learning and then I actually do event coordination, author visits and concerts and movies and cooking classes.

I take the books on the shelves and make them into live action versions. We’re adding a Makerspace at Erlanger and we’re actually breaking ground for a mini amphitheater for larger scale concerts and speakers, so that’s a sign of the direction we’re going in.