DISCLAIMER: This is NOT a certified or verbatim transcript, but rather represents only the context of the class or meeting, subject to the inherent limitations of real-time captioning. The primary focus of real-time captioning is general communication access and as such this document is not suitable, acceptable, nor is it intended for use in any type of legal proceeding.
Episode 5 - A World of Puppets: Transcript
Speaker: Good morning and welcome to the Richard J. Riordan Central Library. The library is now open.
Patron: Hey, how come you don't do puppet shows anymore?
Sheridan: Hello, everyone. This is Sheridan J. Cazarez, a librarian in the Exploration and Creativity department of the Los Angeles Public Library. Back with another episode of Past Due: 100 years of Central Library, a podcast commemorating the Central Library Centennial. To celebrate the old girl. We're putting on a variety of events, a special reading challenge, and creating tons of original content for Angelenos to celebrate their beloved central library. For more, visit lapl.org/central 100. On today's episode, we're exploring the history of puppetry in the Children's Literature department. Let's start by introducing our guest, Mara Alpert. She's a librarian three and she's worked in our children's literature department since 1999, she's reviewed books for School Library, Journal and also served on the 2018 Newbery Award Committee with the American Library Association, which inspired her first tattoo. Thanks for joining us, Mara.
Mara: Thank you for having me.
Sheridan: All right, let's get right into this. Mara, tell us, what is your favorite thing about working at Central Library?
Mara: Well, I love how impressed people are when they first see the children's literature department. They come in and their jaws are all 'waaaaahh'. Um, if it's not busy, I'm always happy to tell them about the carpet and the ceiling and the lamps and everything. Of course, I always tell them I did it all myself, but they probably don't believe me.
Sheridan: How have you interacted with puppets and puppetry since working in children's literature?
Mara: When I first started in the children's literature department, way back in the last century, puppet shows were a regular part of every Saturday storytime. We had the beautiful KLOS story theater with one of the few permanent puppet stages anywhere, and we made full use of it. I was terrified; having never done a puppet show in my life. But I discovered that it was a lot of fun. And after a few months, I asked if I could make a few changes to the scripts because some of them were a little wordy or a little long. Then I started adapting children's books into puppet shows, and then I started writing my own. Um, I always thought at some point that I'd like to try to write a picture book or a novel or something. Um, but it turns out that a five minute, four-page puppet show is my sweet spot. Uh, so we have about 230 puppet show scripts in our files. And I updated, adapted or created about 130 of them.
Sheridan: 130 puppet shows. That's amazing. Uh, is there one, uh, in your memory that stands out as like one that you feel especially proud of?
Mara: I will say that, um, well, actually the current one I'm pretty proud of. All things considered. So you'll hear more about that in a minute.
Sheridan: The current one, you mean. You mean the one for Central 100?
Mara: Yes.
Sheridan: All right. Tell us more about that one.
Mara: So I thought it would be fun to have an official Central 100 puppet show. So I volunteered to write one back in early 2025. And then I spent the next nine months panicking because I was like, 'what am I going to do?' 'How am I going to explain the history of Central Library using puppets?' I just knew it had to be short. It couldn't have more than 2 or 3 characters and had to be about a century of Central Library. And then one day I had this very familiar children's song running through my brain as an earworm, and I started thinking about Central Library, and I put two and two together, and a few hours later I had a song and I had a puppet show. Um, so the puppet show is called "Wizard Celebrates Central Library", and we've presented it twice now. Uh, we try to do it as often as we can this year. Uh, and then I'll probably adapt it into something a little more general.
Sheridan: For any interested listeners. Uh, how would they get to see the central 100 puppet show? Is there a calendar listing? Uh, you know, do you have like preset times that you're, that you're going to present it?
Mara: Well, we're certainly going to present it at the upcoming festival that celebrates Central 100, which will happen in July, July 11th. There will be at least two, two presentations. Other than that, you just have to come to all of our Saturday programs and hope we do it because we don't really schedule them.
Sheridan: Yeah, you heard it here. Stop in Children's Literature every Saturday, and you might be the lucky, the lucky crowd that gets to witness "Wizard Celebrates Central Library!" Keeping on the theme of puppets, when visiting the department, Children's literature, one of the displays features puppets on a rotating basis. Will you tell us about those?
Mara: So the Children's Literature department has a friends group, FOCAL, which stands for Friends of Children and Literature. And every year since 1980, they've given an award to a book, which 'enriches a child's knowledge and understanding of California and its history.' The actual award is a hand puppet made to represent a character from the winning book, and along with the author and the illustrator, if it's a picture book, and sometimes even the person that the book's about, if they're still alive. Um, a puppets made for the Children's Literature department. So from 1980 until 2014, all of the puppets were made by an artist named Carol Onofrio. She worked in, um, papier maché and cloth. And then, sadly, she passed away. And so since 2014, artists Jesse Kingsley and Moira MacDonald began making the puppets from cloth and neoprene. Yes, the stuff you used to go scuba diving. Currently, there are ten of the puppets on display, and eight of them are in our department, and two of them are in the Getty Gallery.
Sheridan: HMM. Okay. Fascinating stuff. Let's dig into the history of of the department a little. I heard, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I heard a rumor that there was a time when Children's Literature was not as appreciated as it is now. Can you tell us about that?
Mara: So back in the 1970s, there was talk of making significant changes to Central Library, and the rumor was that someone way higher up in the food chain had said, 'why do we even have a children's department at Central Library? There are no children downtown.' Yeah. So the Senior librarian at the time, Serena Day, was tasked with finding a way to bring more children and families into Central Library. There were children downtown, by the way, but. Mhm. Um, so both focal, our friends group and the focal award grew out of these efforts to bring more families in. But what really brought the children and families in were puppet shows. So, uh, Renee, Renee's family, I think her son built a puppet stage. And then anytime there was a visiting class or a story time or any kind of event going on at Central Library, the stage came out and a puppet show was presented. Um, so the place is crawling with children and there was no more rumor of, oh, we're not going to have a children's department at Central Library. And in fact, I'm convinced it's the reason why the children's department is in the nicest part of the library since we ended up with not one, but three of the original departments to make up our Children's Literature department.
Sheridan: Right, right, right. Yeah. So the modern Children's literature department is a combination of the History Reading Room and a couple of the other Social Science.
Mara: And the, um, original Literature department is our workroom. And for those of you who know anything about libraries and workrooms, ours is the nicest, like in existence. So just putting it out there.
Sheridan: Um, you mentioned earlier, Mara, about the KLOS theater. Can you tell us a little bit more about that? Like just for any listeners who maybe haven't seen it?
Mara: Uh, so the, so the KLOS story theater is a small theater. It, it originally had 60 very small wooden chairs in it and has a permanent puppet stage that has a vaguely art Deco look to it. Um, and it's named after, yes, the radio station KLOS, but the radio station did donate quite a lot of money and the money was used very well for many, many, many, many years. Um, so currently, the theater needs some significant renovation, uh, in terms of the sound and the lighting and the fact that we can't open and close the curtains anymore because the company that made the mechanism for it no longer exists. Once all that's fixed, we hope to be back in there doing puppet shows. Uh, now we do them sitting under a table with a tablecloth. It's not optimal, but it works.
Sheridan: Yeah. Of course. And children love it anyway, no matter what, you know. Um. All right, Mara, let us know a little bit more about the Central 100 puppet show. Who's in it? What is the plot? Uh. Tell us.
Mara: So there are two characters in the Central 100 puppet show, Librarian and Wizard. You know how some film and television writers use the same actors or characters in multiple projects. Well, Librarian and Wizard are my stock characters. They've been in at least a dozen puppet shows that I've written. So anyway, the plot is that Wizard has come up with a song to celebrate Central Library's 100th anniversary, and the puppet show is basically the presentation of that song. You know, I could see if Wizard would be, uh, maybe willing to sing the first verse for you.
Sheridan: Is Wizard in the room with us today?
Mara: Sure, sure he is. And he's not shy or anything.
Sheridan: Oh, wow.
Mara: So, should I go for it?
Sheridan: Let's do it.
Mara: All right. Uh, say, Wizard, would you, uh, come out and say hello to everyone? Um, hold on just a second. Uh.
Mara as Wizard the puppet: Hello, everyone.
Sheridan: Hi, Wizard.
Mara: Uh, so would you be willing to sing the first verse of your Central Library song?
Mara as Wizard the puppet: Oh, well, I don't know.
Mara as Wizard the puppet: Okay, so. Me, me. Okay, here we go.
Mara as Wizard the puppet: Central library is a place that's old, old, old. It's so cool that it's cold, cold, cold. There's a torch that's covered with gold, gold, gold that used to be on the roof. Ta da!
Sheridan: Amazing. Amazing. Amazing. Amazing.
Mara: Good job, Wizard.
Mara as Wizard the puppet: Thank you! Thank you very much.
Sheridan: Just magical.
Mara as Wizard the puppet: I could do more.
Mara: That's okay.
Mara: Let's.
Mara: Let's Let's save it for everybody else.
Sheridan: Yes. Any interested listeners show up to our festival on Saturday, July 11th here at Central Library in downtown Los Angeles. We're going to throw a huge party. There's going to be puppetry, giveaways, and just celebration of the Central Library. Um. All right, Mara, I'm going to ask you the final question that I ask of any guest on the podcast. What is your personal favorite part of Central.
MARA
I have to admit, my favorite part is the view from the Children's Literature Department reference desk. So from where we sit, we look out onto the rotunda and it's like, it's like having a television out there. At the holidays, there's a beautiful tree, and then there's always people coming and they are amazed and they're taking pictures, and sometimes they're doing gymnastics or dancing or laying on the floor or. And every once in a while, people will sing because the acoustics are great for singing, not so much for talking, but singing is good. Um, it's just it's like a whole pageant of things to see. And you can see the statue of civilization. And it's just a wonderful view. And I'm glad I get to see it almost every day.
Sheridan: I would be too. I remember when I used to work in Children's Lit. I just used to sit there and stare out and just daydream about being a librarian, as I was being a librarian. It's great stuff. Great stuff. Thank you so much for joining us today, Mara, and we'll be on the lookout for that puppet show.
Mara: All right. Thank you.
Sheridan: Here with me now is Christina Hairston, a librarian with LAPL who's got a mystery to solve.
Christina: Hey, Sheridan. Uh, yeah, I'm going to need your help with this one.
Sheridan: Oh, I'll see what I can do. Christina has been working as a librarian since 2018, first with LA County Library as a Children's librarian, and then here at Los Angeles Public Library, where she has served in the Social Science Philosophy and Religion Department and the Children's Literature department. Now she's the new genealogy librarian. Congratulations, Christina. {Thank you.} In our History and Genealogy department. You may also recognize her name as the Executive Producer of the Past Due podcast. Gotta love a well-rounded librarian. So, Christina, what do you have for us?
Christina: This mystery is one I'd heard about while working in the Children's Literature department. Just like Mara said, we get to sit at the reference desk and watch all the activity that happens on the second floor. All the tour groups visit that department. After all, it is one of the most beautiful parts of our library.
Sheridan: Oh yeah. Absolutely.
Christina: And I would always catch snippets of the docent tours. And one thing I remember was about the lamps. And I've also been asked this question from library visitors a lot, whether all the lamps in the room are original, like from the 1920s. And I was always told that they're all reproductions except one of them. So I asked some folks who've been here longer than me. Which one is the original?
Mark: Hi, I'm Mark. I've been working here at Central in the children's department for almost two years now, and the riddle about the lamps was part of the onboarding process. And I still don't know because when I asked which one is the lamp, I don't think who was explaining it to me knew either.
Mara: I have absolutely no idea. They all look exactly alike to me and and I've been looking at them for a long, long time.
Shanna: My opinion on which of the lamps is real? That's a really great question. You know, they all look great to me, and it's a testament to the craftsmanship that I do not know. I cannot tell. Even after nearly a decade of working here.
Joanna: I'm Joanna Fabicon. My current position is the Senior Librarian of Children's Services. But from 2008 to 2016, I was a children's librarian here in the Children's Literature Department of Central Library. That's a lot of "children's" in my title. I heard a little bit of the law whenever a docent would come in bringing groups to talk about the department. But I've never heard that there is an original lamp lurking amongst these.
Sheridan: Oh, I see you really went on a mission. You did. You did a little sleuthing for this one.
Christina: Oh, yeah. I love a good guessing game. But then I realized I know someone else who knows the full story. My good friend and host, Sheridan J. Cazarez. You're a trained docent now, right?
Sheridan: Oh, I see where you're going with this.
Christina: Yeah, I know you've got all the secrets now. So you tell me, what's the story with the lamps?
Sheridan: Okay, I'm gonna put on my docent badge right here. So here's the story that I heard from docent extraordinaire and also Past Due podcast guest Tom McQuade. Originally the Children's Literature department; what is now the Children's Literature department was the History Reading Room of the library. So in those days, the floor had a checkered black and white tile floor and those sort of standing pillar lamps that are now in the Children's Literature department. At some point, though, I think it was in the 1950s, it was decided that those lamps were a little bit passé. They looked old fashioned, they might have been broken or in disrepair. And somebody decided that they wanted to get rid of the lamps to install, what then was, state of the art, new lighting for the space age 1950s. And that was fluorescent lighting, you know. Yeah. These decisions are being made every day all over the place. And so they decided to get rid of all of those lamps and put them into storage somewhere.
Christina: Yeah. I remember seeing a photo of what it looked like back when it was just the History Reading Room. And I know some of the tour groups, they could see that photo too. And, uh, I don't know, the fluorescents were definitely a little less impressive.
Sheridan: They are a lot less impressive, if you ask me. Yeah. So all of those lamps went into storage, the bronze lamps. They installed, track fluorescent lighting sort of grafted directly onto the ceiling of the department. You can actually look up and still see the leftover impressions of where they put those tracks of fluorescent lighting. You can see three of them across, across the ceiling of the department. And then for any listeners, you can actually check the show notes. We'll put in a photo there so you can see what it looked like with the fluorescent lighting and without the lamps that are there now. Um, so fast forward to the 1980s. The library is working on some renovations and restorations even before the fire, and then post the fire during opening. They had hired a firm and an architect by the name of Brenda Levin. Brenda Levin is a world renowned architect, and she's well known for her restoration work the world over. She is Harvard educated, and she founded the architecture and urban design firm "Levin and Associates." Uh, she's worked on a ton of different projects all over the place; from the 1929 Wilshire Boulevard temple. She's worked on the Oakwood School, she's worked on Grand Central Market, a ton of different projects all over, all over Los Angeles and all over the world. So they hired her to do the restoration for the children's literature department, or what was then going to be the Children's Literature department here at central. At some point during the restoration work, "Levin and Associates" heard about a lamp that was in storage that was one of the original lamps in the History Reading Room. All the rest at that point had been sold for scrap, and there was just this one left in storage that they were able to find. Thankfully, because the lamps are bronze, they were able to take that lamp and create a mold of it, and then recast the other lamps to fill up the rest of the department in their original positions when the department was the history reading room. So now all of the lamps are back in the place where they were, and the original is among the ones that were cast to save some money. They decided to put the original back in its place so that they wouldn't have to cast an extra one. But nobody to this day, knows which one is the original and which ones are the reproductions.
Christina: Nobody, huh? The docents don't know. None of the workers know. I don't know, I guess I'd take a guess, but I guess this is one mystery.
Sheridan: I'm sure that if we wanted to launch a forensic investigation and look at the lamps under some microscopes, we might see some more wear and tear on the original. But to date, nobody's nobody's done that. And, uh, it's kind of a fun little story to sit there and ponder which one is the original, to bring in different groups and say, hey, we don't know which one it is. And there's this sort of moment of like these things that are lost to history. Uh, even though they're still here with us.
Christina: From the scrap yard back to its place in glory.
Sheridan: Yeah, yeah. Come visit Children's Literature if you want to see the lamps up close. They're fantastic. They're magnificent. Uh, and then if you visit the new wing of the library, the Tom Bradley wing, you'll see that the architect that worked on that part of the building, Norman Pfeiffer, recreated those lamps in a much more, in an updated fashion for all of the lamps that sit on the tables in the different subject departments of the Tom Bradley wing. So it's pretty cool to see how the old building and the new building kind of are in harmony with each other, based upon these designs that continue to echo throughout the building.
Christina: Oh yeah. You're definitely a docent. Definitely a trained docent.
Sheridan: Yeah, yeah. All right, well, uh, it looks like we'll never really know about this particular mystery. Thanks so much for coming on, Christina. And, and bringing this to our attention. Hopefully, our listeners can can visit us here in Children's Literature and, uh, and see if they can figure out which one the original is.
Christina: No, thank you. Sheridan.
Sheridan: Today we wanted to highlight a department that the public cannot see, but you interact with them every single day. Have you ever wondered who orders all of the books at the Los Angeles Public Library? Today, we're talking with Llyr Heller-Humphreys, Senior Librarian of the library's Acquisitions department, to shed some light on the whole process. Thanks so much for being with us, Llyr.
Llyr: Oh, sure. My pleasure.
Sheridan: Before we get into the nitty and the gritty of ordering books and getting, getting them all processed and ready to check out and check in, tell us a little bit about your career. How did you get here? How long have you been here? Let us know.
Llyr: My name is Llyr Heller Humphreys. I'm the Senior librarian in acquisitions. I've been in Los Angeles Public Library for about ten years. Started with a quick stop at the History department, but was mainly a Young Adult librarian in Teen'Scape. And then I've been in Acquisitions for about two years as a Senior, one year prior. And it's very nice. I feel like we are the backbone of the library, and although I don't get to do my favorite readers advisory anymore, I feel like through our process that you'll hear about, I get to do a lot.
Sheridan: So tell us about your department. What is its role in the library's ecosystem?
Llyr: Sure. Of course. Acquisitions. We are some of the behind the scenes magic that gets the patrons the books they want. So some of what we do, we coordinate the acquisitions, the purchase of all the collections. We work with selectors and vendors. We deal with AV, e-media, periodicals, databases, the unit processes payments for material invoices. So we also work through weekly reports that show Holds so that we get more copies. So you don't have to wait as long. We are not a centralized ordering library system. That means the branches and the departments get a monthly list that is curated, and then the branches and departments get to select from that list how they see fit for their demographic, etc. we also handle some specific collections like AV, large print, etc. We receive, we check-in, we process materials in-house. At times, we work with system-wide initiatives for collections and collection development.
Sheridan: I'm desperate to hear about some numbers because I know that it has to be huge. How many books does your department purchase every month or every year?
Llyr: Okay, so I have fiscal year stats. So our fiscal year is around June to June. So our fiscal year stats for 24/25 is about, uh, 45,628 individual titles at about 276,318 copies. And that's also 3,310 periodical subscriptions, as well as hold on to your seat, 629,828 overdrive ebook audiobook copies added.
Sheridan: How big is the team that buys and then processes these collections?
Llyr: So let's talk larger overview.
Sheridan: Yeah. No worries.
Llyr: Um, so each month an order list is made available to the branches. Like we were chatting about, our one Adult specialist creates the adult list. For all adult fiction, nonfiction, what have you. The Children's Literature department and our Children's specialist create the juvenile lists. And for young adult I and my uh, colleague in Teen'Scape Amanda, we create the sheets. She's our graphic novel manga specialist. I deal with fiction nonfiction for the young adult. So then those go to the branches. So we are a small but mighty, say, selection list making team. And then the ordering happens branch level. So it's, you know, one librarian per category. And then once those orders come in, uh, we look at our vendors and see where we should order them from. There's around four vendors. Um, some materials go to the vendors; from the vendors to the branch or department, ready for shelves, ready for like right away. So others need to be received and processed in-house by our receiving four staff members and materials processing ten staff members, respectively. So it's about, we're about 22 people in acquisitions. Um, which sounds like a lot, but it really isn't.
Sheridan: Yeah. For such a system as big as LAPL, give us a quick walkthrough on how a book goes from a request to being on the shelves.
Llyr: Oh, wonderful. So if you are putting in a patron request through our website, Suggest-a -Purchase. And it's something that we can find and we can purchase, then it goes to the subject department where it falls under. So if you give us a children's title, it goes to the children's department. They review it. There's a set of um, checklists they go through, uh, that is also found on our website. And then there's two ways to then get it. One, they may put it on an order sheet if there's enough copies in like the vendor system to warrant that. But if not, they may put it in a cart just for them so that it gets in the system. Once in the system, a branch can find it. They can order their own. We do try to order as much as we can, and we have two dedicated people that look at all the patron requests and get it into the right hands.
Sheridan: All right. Yeah. For any listeners out there, you can request a purchase. What you'd want to do is do a quick web search for Los Angeles Public Library, Suggest-a-Purchase, and that'll bring you right up to the form. Type in the book that you'd like to find for us to buy, and then we'll take it from there. If it's available, we we usually put it on our shelves. What would you say is the, the percentage rate of success for a suggested purchase form?
Mara: Um.
Llyr: It's hard to tell. There's so many factors, but I would say it's pretty good. It's just that you'll never know unless you check the catalog because we get about 80 to 100 a day. So we cannot answer patrons. We just have to get through them. Um, but definitely check back. The turnover is about three months.
Sheridan: Here's a question a little bit more about the the industry itself. So listeners may or may not know that recently one of the major book vendors for libraries went out of business after being a foundational presence in book distribution in the United States. Baker and Taylor is a company that recently went kaput. How is that affecting ordering and acquisitions here at Los Angeles Public Library?
Llyr: Well, to tell you the truth, we actually used them most for list making. So as creating the list for the branches to order from in departments, we like to look at vendor lists. We look at scholarly journals, we look many, many, many places. And one of those places was the list generated by Baker and Taylor. And we don't have that anymore. We have other lists, so never worry. But we didn't order too too much from them. So that actually didn't impact us too much. But we also used them for other programs such as Sustainable Shelves, which is what we do for withdrawing materials. They get recycled, etc. There's another workflow in place for that now, but we all had to scramble to do that. And then the other thing we used them for were replacement carts. So branches, when their books get kind of, you know, they get used, they get well-loved, they want a new copy. There's just a different workflow for it now. But I have heard rumblings that maybe it's coming back with a different helm, so I'm not sure. Stay tuned.
Sheridan: Stay tuned. Definitely. I remember when I was a youth services librarian, I would pretty much do all of my ordering on Baker and Taylor, so that would have for sure thrown me for a loop.
Llyr: They were lovely because you could always tell what stock they had, and that's not always the case.
Sheridan: Let's switch gears just a tiny bit from print to digital. How has the push towards more digital resources affected the way you think about the ways in which library resources serve the public?
Llyr: So that's a bit of a different department. My boss, Catherine Royalty, is in charge of that. But in these trying times, it's important to not only offer resources online, but in person as well. So we have so many important resources. We have over 200, 241 to be exact, databases. And for the third year running. We are the number one lending library in the world on OverDrive and Libby, with over 15 million items borrowed in 2025.
Sheridan: If you're one of our diehard Libby users, thank you so much. It is a prize that we take deeply to heart to be the number one lending library for Libby on the planet. It's pretty exciting for us.
Llyr: It's so exciting.
Sheridan: Llyr, how do you ensure that we have a balanced collection that can serve such a diverse range of users and readers in the city in a place like Los Angeles?
Llyr: Of course, first off, I do want to give a shout out to our Multilingual collection development team, who I'm sure you'll be talking with later, because they're amazing and they order all the foreign language books. But when we're talking about books in English, we pride ourselves on looking at and for diverse authors and publishers. So we look for diversity, not just in the character, but is the author that's writing it also diverse? We look towards own voices. Um, we love to see, you know, authors of the same background/ethnicity that they're writing about because it's so, so important that people of all ages, not just kids, see themselves reflected in what they read, as well as learn about other people from different walks of life. To do that, we look at diverse publishers, we look at lists, we do our research, and we always are open to staff suggestions and patron suggestions. And to that effect, I want to do a quick plug for the Indie Fest we have. It's, uh, Independent Voices and Zines and it's, uh, one of our festivals at Los Angeles Public Library. And that's an excellent way every year to get marginalized voices, but also self-published and indie published voices to the forefront.
Sheridan: For any listeners out there. Uh, definitely, definitely recommend Indie Author Day here at Central Library. Uh, last year I volunteered and I was moderating, uh, one of the rooms where we had Spanish language authors. And one of them totally made me cry. I was sitting there in the front row, tears welling up. Her story was amazing. And, and just the heart that she put on display in her work was, was really, really moving. Llyr, do you have any favorite subjects in the collection that you like to keep your eye on? Like what? What makes you tick?
Llyr: Oh of course. So I read about 250 books a year, but my passion is young adult literature, middle grade fiction, and adult mysteries. So because I create the YA fiction nonfiction lists that the branches order from, I'm always looking at YA literature, I love it, it's amazing. Um, that's my favorite. Uh, and also being a YA librarian in this system out of the system for over a decade. Um, so I read pretty broadly and that's what I mainly keep an eye on. I get a zillion emails of like books that are coming out, I love it.
Sheridan: Sick sick 250 books a year is insanity. I think I might read like three. I'm one of those librarians that doesn't read. Sorry, everybody to let you down out there.
Llyr: I don't think that's true.
Sheridan: Uh, okay. And for the for our final question, I have a question that I ask of every single guest on the podcast. And that is, what is your favorite thing about Central Library?
Llyr: I grew up overseas and I'm used to city life. And although I don't live in the city per se, I love working downtown Los Angeles because it's the feeling of working and walking around in a city and in of the most beautiful historical buildings, and you can almost discover something new every day. I've been here ten years. I still see things I've never seen before.
Sheridan: Very true. I live in downtown LA. I work in downtown LA. I walk around a ton and there's always something, something going on. Thank you so much for being with us Llyr. We so appreciate you being a guest on the podcast. You're incredibly busy, as evidenced by the fact that you and your department purchase hundreds of thousands of books every single year for Angelenos, big and small.
Llyr: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Sheridan: What an amazing look at how the library makes sure that we have books on our shelves that are coming out, that are new, that are diverse, and ready for you all to check out whenever you visit any of our locations. Before this episode is over, I would like to tell you about another fun opportunity to celebrate Central Library Centennial. If you felt inspired by “Past Due: 100 years of Central Library” and want to submit your own story or special memory about the impact Central Library has made on your life, consider taking part in our central 100 community Oral history project with the recording platform, Their Story. You can record a short video or audio clip that will be preserved in our archives. If you're interested, the information will be linked in our show notes, or you can visit lapl.org/central 100 forward slash oral history. Here's a snippet of a submission.
Jacqueline: Hello, my name is Jacqueline Ortiz. I was born and raised in Los Angeles. I'm originally from the Highland Park neighborhood and grew up in Boyle Heights and El Sereno, and I currently live in Salt Lake City. The Central Library means so much to me. I've had amazing memories in that space. In particular, I used to work across the street and I would frequent there during my breaks at the Panda Express in the library. Aand on occasion, me and my coworker at the time were both interns. We started our internship when we were in high school, so as a junior, we would go there for our lunch breaks or just go and walk around. It's always been a very much a safe haven for me, and I've always enjoyed loving how much of a long standing institution it's been. It's almost kind of something that I've always admired in this city where, with all these skyscrapers, the Central Library has maintained its positioning as a beautiful art deco building right in the middle of the city, a place for everyone to pass through, either to get a book or just to get out of the heat and just be there. And so I've always admired everything that has been kept within those walls.
Sheridan: Today's episode was made possible by Executive Producer Christina Hairston. It was recorded with help from the staff in the Octavia lab, the Central Library's makerspace. I'm your host, Sheridan J. Casarez with the Los Angeles Public Library. Thanks for listening to the Past Due podcast. We'll see you at the library.
[[Music outro]
DISCLAIMER: This is NOT a certified or verbatim transcript, but rather represents only the context of the class or meeting, subject to the inherent limitations of real-time captioning. The primary focus of real-time captioning is general communication access, and as such, this document is not suitable, acceptable, nor intended for use in any type of legal proceeding.