Steve Thomas: Leah, Lori, and Maryan, welcome to Circulating Ideas.
I wanna start back at the beginning. First of all, maybe for people who don’t know about the Roadtrip Nation series as a whole, can you just give a brief recap of what that covers? And then how did this specific series, Beyond Books, come together? What made you want to tell the story of libraries in this format?
Lori Benitez: Roadtrip Nation is basically a career exploration and education media company. So for the most part, one of the things we do is put people on Roadtrips, people who are in their crossroads and trying to decide where they wanna go in life. Our Roadtrips are themed and this one in particular was libraries. They’re themed and they basically get to go and sit down with people who are successful in those spaces and ask as many questions as they can, and then all those interviews get cut down into profile pages that we can re-watch and re-watch and then they also get made into a docuseries.
Steve Thomas: That’s great. It is a fun series if you’ve never seen it before. Obviously, we’re gonna focus on the library one here today, but even if it’s not your field, it’s fun to see people exploring and discovering about themselves in various fields. So the series is out already. You can watch it on your local PBS station. You can watch it online. For anybody who hasn’t seen it yet, what do you want people to understand about libraries?
Leah Bleich: One of the real goals for us throughout the storytelling process was to inform viewers, whether they work in the library space or outside of it, how much love and care and diversity of experience goes into building libraries, and how much more expansive this career field can be than just your stereotypical image of a lady shushing you in the stacks. Our hope is to really expand that view.
Steve Thomas: Bust those stereotypes. And Maryan and I were talking when we first got on the call of how well they got along and everything, and I imagine that’s something in the process of you all, producer, director, putting it together that’s something you’re looking for, something that you hope that they’ll get along, personality wise. How many people apply to this kind of thing, and how do you winnow that down?
Leah Bleich: We had a record number of applicants for this one. It was one of the most that Roadtrip Nation had seen in years. So for Maryan, Jenny, and Isabelle, they really stood out. And maybe Maryan can speak to this, but we had an unusually and very special connection, I would say, amidst these three Roadtrippers. The whole Roadtrip felt like we were having a sleepover. It was a really sweet connection between our group, and especially between the three Roadtrippers.
Lori Benitez: And luckily we have a really good casting producer, Shay, who also worked with Leah and I during the casting process to keep us all in the head space of what we’re looking for. We really try to get a very diverse group in many different ways and try to narrow that down. We have to get from hundreds and hundreds of applicants to 12, and then from 12, we get three with three backups just in the event that something happens. And that’s very challenging ’cause you just form relationships with all of them and then you narrow it down to three. And also just making sure that the three of them, that we think the three of them are gonna work well, ’cause they have never met each other at all, and they don’t, officially, until we bring them to headquarters in Costa Mesa, and that’s where they get all the training they need. They meet for the first time and start to build a connection that they’re gonna take onto the Roadtrip and be filmed. It’s a wild idea what we do. But it works, and in this case worked so beautifully with the three of them.
Maryan Liban: And I would say even though it’s a wild process, it’s very clear that it’s very intentional. Something that we really appreciated that Roadtrip Nation did is during our training in Costa Mesa, we had a place just to ourselves, just the three of us, right? And we were able just to chit-chat. It was in that moment we realized that we’re gonna be besties forever. But it also just gave us that privacy to really just talk about ourselves, our experiences, and really connect.
So I think I really just appreciated that intentionality and that time together before going on the road. We got to experience what it’s like living together for a little bit. And I would also just add, too, I think something I really appreciate about this whole casting process, too, is, and I know me and Jenny have talked about this as well, but we’ve never gone on a trip like this with people we’ve never met before. A lot of first-time, new experiences. And, despite all the worries and the anxieties that popped up, I really appreciated how Shay and the casting crew and the producers really … I had so many questions, and they answered all of my questions. You can just tell that they really did believe in our stories, and they really wanted to tell our stories, so I appreciate that.
Steve Thomas: That’s great. Maryan, you were already working toward a career in library and information science when this came along. What was your attraction to it? What were you like, “Oh, this sounds like a great opportunity”?
Maryan Liban: Yeah. It was really interesting. So full transparency the first time I saw this was, like, an ad on social media on Instagram, and I thought it was really cool, but I was also convinced this was a scam. It sounded just too good to be true, and I wasn’t familiar with the work of Roadtrip Nation. And it took me some time to build that confidence. I think what really made me realize it wasn’t a scam was seeing that ALA was posting about it and just doing my own independent research on Roadtrip Nation. So that’s one part.
You kind of hear this throughout the interviews as well, I was in a very interesting space where I had career experience in librarianship, and I knew that was the career that I wanted to go into, but I kinda felt like I was at a bit of a ceiling. I was at a stopping point where I wanted to experience this career, but there was just that professional gap.
And just these questions of, is this a sustainable career, we know that librarianship isn’t a career that people go into necessarily to make huge income or anything, but the passion is still there. So just trying to figure out, as a first-generation immigrant daughter, who doesn’t really have a lot of financial support, if I pursue my passion, can I also still sustain myself, was really a big question that I had.
And I think also during that time I was just going through all sorts of worries. I had my career worries, I had my financial worries, and I think just the opportunity to temporarily escape and ask questions and explore these insecurities that I had but didn’t really have the opportunity to explore before, I think was just really attractive.
And yeah who wouldn’t wanna be on a RV for 21 days just interviewing people who are in your field?
Leah Bleich: I actually think a lot of people wouldn’t wanna be. It takes a very particular type of person to be willing to move into an RV with five other strangers and live there for three weeks!
Steve Thomas: But as you said, you got hundreds of people who wanted to!
I think that’s part of librarianship, in general, that we’re curious but we also wanna share. And so it’s like we wanna share our experience, and that’s part of this is not only learning about yourself, but you get to share about like these episodes also get to be sharing about librarianship with other people. And it also is a good exploration of yourself as well and your career. But now people can understand more about what libraries are and what they do and what they can do.
Maryan Liban: Exactly. And I think also even just to add, I think ’cause I just talked to other people that I knew before when I used to work in libraries, and I just know some of us really do share that concern of do we need to pivot, some people are blessed to experience librarianship as a second career, but for those of us who are pursuing it as our very first career, there can be some insecurities and some doubts. So I was just really grateful for all the librarians who gave us their wisdom and their experience, and really just that relatability aspect and their honesty.
Steve Thomas: Yeah, and you do talk to a lot of great people throughout, and you picked different types of people so you can get different views of librarianship. Leah and Lori, how did you decide which people you wanted to reach out to and which experiences would help tell that overall story?
Lori Benitez: Like for each project that we have and each trip, we do have a creative brief. So there are some aspects that we want to tell in terms of the theme as a whole. But then we also really wanna cater to the needs or experiences that the Roadtrippers wanna get out of. So it’s a mixture of a lot of things. It’s also, we pick the route. So it’s also who’s along that route or who can we fly out to be a part of it if it makes sense, things like that. So there’s a few different ways in which the leaders or the people that we choose to go after how we do that. And I think a lot of it depends on the Roadtrippers and what they’re needing, making sure that we’re aligning with our creative brief as a whole. For this one, the Carnegie Foundation was sponsoring the Roadtrip, and also just where we were going and where we’re at.
Leah Bleich: Yeah I think Lori mostly covered it. It was also bringing in ideas from our amazing Roadtrippers as well. The thing about working in the library space that’s so fantastic is people are so passionate about it, and excited and wanting to support. And so we just found that there were pretty much no doors that were closed to us within the space. Also, I don’t know, maybe there’s some overlap between people that pursue librarianship and also being diligent, wonderful communicators because everybody got back to us on our emails. Everybody just wanted to help, came to us with ideas, asked about schedules. I feel like this was a really charmed Roadtrip Nation project, honestly. And everybody at the company felt that way.
Maryan Liban: It was so wholesome, beginning to end.
Leah Bleich: It was really fun. I miss this trip, honestly. Yeah.
Steve Thomas: That’s really great. And obviously you went through Iowa, so you got to talk to the ALA president at the time. And Chicago is the perfect place to end for libraries ’cause that’s where the ALA is headquartered, and there’s lots of great library activity going on there. But with all the libraries and as happy and wholesome, as wonderful as it was, I do think that the Petrified Forest made Maryan the very happiest of anything that you all did.
Maryan Liban: Yep.
Steve Thomas: If there was a library at the Petrified Forest…
Maryan Liban: I would’ve had to move, honestly.
Leah Bleich: That’s so funny. You know what was sweet also, like, with your previous question, how do we pick the leaders, we also, when we’re deciding a route, try to pick a route that would be exciting for our Roadtrippers. And one of the things that Maryan had said very early in the process is, ” Obviously, you guys go wherever we need to go in this documentary, but one of my big goals for the year, a big bucket list item for me this year, is to go to a national park, ’cause I’ve never been to a national park.”
And as we were designing a route, we were like, “Man, we’d really like to make that happen.” But we couldn’t. I remember Lori and I, a bunch of different versions were like, “Ah, that doesn’t quite work. That doesn’t quite work. That doesn’t quite work.” And then when we landed on LA to Chicago, suddenly we found a way to get not just one but two national parks into the trip. And it was so exciting and we were really happy to be able to make that work. And it just also, it helps when the team that you’re working with is excited about where you’re going to, and Maryan brought so much beautiful enthusiasm to Petrified Forest National Park.
Maryan Liban: Thank you. Thank you. It was super sweet, because everyone was just as happy as I was to be able to experience the national park. And kinda going along to your question as well, I really appreciated that, something that was asked very early on was dream big. If you could do anything, if you could talk to anyone, who would you want? So I think that also helped a lot.
Steve Thomas: That probably got you to your first interview with Mychal the Librarian, one of our more famous librarians and with a good PBS connection too, and he of course always brings such joy to things. Literally , it is his thing. But Maryan, is there anybody in particular like that spoke to your concerns? Like one that spoke to you about what your career concerns and made you think differently about how your career might look?
Maryan Liban: I don’t want to give that generic answer, but honestly, because of how intentional our library leaders were, I was actually blown away by all of them, and I felt like they all really spoke to me. I think starting off with Mychal the Librarian really set the bar in particular. I think something that I really appreciated about him was that he was very candid and very honest about being able to hold space for library joy, but also dealing with the realities of being in librarianship, specific public librarianship isn’t always rainbows and programs. There’s burnout, and he was able to speak to things that I was feeling and experiencing, especially just burnout in my early library career experience. And so I really just appreciated him saying the quiet things very loud. So I knew immediately we were off to a great start.
But I also just think, both the on-camera but off-camera conversations that we had were also really special. With Sheridan in particular in LA, we had some off- camera conversations, and he also talked a lot about what does it mean to go up the ladder professionally, and some of the realities of being a person of color, right? Realities of being a woman in this field, right? What does success look like with, with those realities? So I just think all of our leaders brought a level of honesty and vulnerability, and they didn’t really sugarcoat the realities, but also being able to celebrate the joy and reminding us of all the reasons why we’re doing the work that we want to do.
Steve Thomas: Yeah. We do care so much about our patrons, but you do get the back end of that, of compassion fatigue. You hear that nurses and doctors have that kind of thing too. It’s like caring so much that it just pulls that out of you, and you gotta have that self-care.
Maryan Liban: Yeah, yeah. Just because you’re doing this because you love it, doesn’t necessarily mean that you shouldn’t be compensated properly for it. And I think, having those co- tough conversations about financial expectations, and what is a sustainable income in librarianship, I think those are also conversations that, at least I don’t really have a lot of access to. So being able to talk to him also set some realistic expectations on what am I really getting myself into?
Leah Bleich: Just to jump off like a little bit, I know for the docuseries, like there’s only so many leaders we could feature in the series themselves. But all the leaders, you can find their profiles, which have their interviews, and they’re all great to watch, all 10 of them. Because we can’t fit all of that, and it’s so sad that we can’t, but they were all so great. So if anyone does want to see them, you just go to roadtripnation.com and then you can find on the “Beyond Books” page, all the interviews of everybody. So check out Sheridan’s, check out all the rest of them.
Steve Thomas: Yeah. You get very much people invested and it helps I think, again, that you all got along so well because you’re telling your stories to each other, not only just to those camera shots of telling how you’re feeling, but you get the conversations between each other and even you mentioned earlier, like a sleepover. But there’s a shot of you all literally had a little sleepover in bed, all three of you laying there reading, like that’s a perfect librarian sleepover kind of thing there.
Leah Bleich: Yeah. And it was so organic, those moments too. I would say if anything, like we were trying to capture the level of joy and fun and sleepover energy that was happening organically along the road, and I would say in person it was even more so.
I think I have to insert this fun fact, just because it’s so criminal that it’s not in the project anywhere, and it was such a big part of our Roadtrip. Maryan knows what I’m gonna say. One of our big inside jokes along the Roadtrip was a mutual shared love amidst the Roadtrippers and the crew for High School Musical, the popular Disney Channel original movie. Yeah, and we actually ended up filming a whole shot-for-shot remake of a song from High School Musical along the road, and we watched the entire series on the Roadtrip, along with many other rom-coms and sweet movies. So it was just very, everybody was having fun.
Steve Thomas: Maryan, you had founded Maryan’s List that you do on TikTok and Instagram that highlights inclusive children’s books. Did the trip help shape the way that you do those social media channels?
Maryan Liban: Yeah, absolutely. I think something that I really struggle with, I really like content creation and I really love being able to share all these amazing stories, right? I think one of the reasons that I decided to go into librarianship besides the love and the great experience working with patrons, was really just being exposed to all these amazing diverse literature that I didn’t have access to when I was younger, and being able to be like, “You need this book!”
But content creation is its own world, right? And so just being able just to talk to Mychal the Librarian or even Kelly Jensen, and seeing the way that they’re able to combine their professional career with their passion I think was very inspiring. Because I think sometimes I felt like I have to either do this or this, or I have to keep these two worlds somewhat separate, so I really appreciate just being able to see that you can combine the worlds. And also that, who knows what opportunities are gonna come out of these experiences. Mychal the Librarian is the PBS librarian, right? That was not something that existed before him. I think that also just reminds me that the world is always evolving and, the type of librarian that I wanna be might not exist right now, but maybe I’ll be able to create my own path if I just keep on pursuing my passions and my interests.
So that was really special. I think for me now I’m at this point where I have all this content that I’ve already filmed and I just need to edit and post them, but I think it just made me rethink social media not necessarily as another job, but just keep holding onto that joy and, yeah, just being myself authentically and being okay with that.
Steve Thomas: Yeah, and there are a lot of libraries that are just knocking it out of the park on social media. Some of the funniest things I see are library related.
Lori and Leah, did this process make you change the way that you look at libraries?
Leah Bleich: Yes. I don’t really feel like I had a huge connection growing up to libraries for myself. It wasn’t until I had my own kids and we started going to a ton of story times and then just accessing the library a little bit more for that. But I will say the trip really opened my eyes to just how beautiful that some libraries are. And now when I go to a city or go somewhere, I wanna go check out the library, especially, if I went to New York, we just went to the library. Just go check it out. It’s a beautiful library. Even ending in Chicago, that one, it felt like a museum and it’s completely free, and there’s so much to it, much more than just the books there. They offer so many programs and labs and things that people can utilize, and it’s free. So it just really cemented a lot of that and that it’s a place for everybody. So it just deepened that knowledge about and reminder of libraries for me.
Lori Benitez: Definitely. Yeah. The other big piece for me, I completely agree with everything you just said, and I think the other piece for me that the project really opened my eyes to was the value of having a third space that’s open to the public, and what a beautiful gift that is, and something that’s really worth protecting. I think I’ve really taken those spaces for granted my whole life, and recognizing that they’re something that need to be protected, advocated for, and that there are these really passionate people that go into making them such strong resources for the community, it just really made me appreciate what kind of incredible public service librarians are doing to make these spaces available.
Steve Thomas: And like that YouMedia Lab that they have in Chicago, lots of libraries have maker spaces, but they have that one that they’ve really targeted toward teens, and that’s one of those ideas of meeting the community where they are, ’cause teens in Chicago needed something like that, and you know that they do because like Chris Brown says in the interview, Chance the Rapper got started using the YouMedia Lab, and you’re like, “What?!”
Is there anything else really that you filmed that didn’t make it into either the footage of the actual two-episode show or even online that you’re putting in an interview that you wish you could’ve included but like just didn’t fit the program?
Leah Bleich: Yeah. I think it’s always a real tragedy with these projects that not every interview gets to make the cut. There were a few that I know were really impactful for people that, I think particularly I know it’s just front of mind ’cause Maryanna brought up a moment ago we had an early interview with a librarian named Sheridan. What really stood out to me about his interview was he gave really actionable advice about advocating for yourself and your career. And just because librarianship is a career that people have typically, I think people are typically taught you shouldn’t expect to make money or make good money in, I think he did a really excellent job helping our team recognize that there are still ways to advocate for yourself and that you shouldn’t just take that as a given and that these are jobs that do deserve to be paid fairly. So I really liked that element of his interview, and I think everybody really got something out of it. And then otherwise, yeah, just like the joy and the play. I think we still got a lot of that in there, but there were some really goofy bits that just make no sense to include.
Steve Thomas: You filmed for 21, 22 days. I’m sure there was lots of stuff off camera even the three of you bonding together. And I love also that Isabelle gets to do roller derby with another librarian. That was an amazing find, that you found another librarian who does roller derby on the route.
Leah Bleich: Yeah, that was one of the ones, like we were talking about trying to have our Roadtrippers also suggest people for us to reach out to. I believe Isabelle found Sarah and then we reached out and made it happen. But unbelievably serendipitous just to find that along the way was really special. That’s one of my favorite sequences in the project. It makes me laugh every time. It’s Jenny, Maryan, and Isabelle being tough to the camera and using roller derby names. And then we cut right to Jenny going… she was like, “I’m the archival rival.” And then it cuts to Frog and Toad.
Steve Thomas: Frog on the road.
Leah Bleich: Yeah. And then we cut to Sarah going, “It’s fine. It’s like riding a bike.” And Jenny goes, “I don’t really know how to ride a bike either.” And they’re just on their skates, very stiff in a way. It’s so funny. Yeah.
Maryan Liban: I will also say I think Isabel and Jenny are the funniest people I have ever met. And Jenny particularly has so many great one-liners, and like, that scene specifically made it to the cut to the film. But there are so many other things that she said!
Leah Bleich: I have to say I’m reminiscing on this Roadtrip now. I cried laughing at a frequency that I don’t think I’ve experienced in a long time on this Roadtrip. The Roadtrippers were so funny. Also, our crew was so funny. Our director of photography, our cinematographer made me laugh so hard. Everybody was really funny and firing on all cylinders on this project.
Maryan Liban: Our humors and personalities just meshed so well. It was like, where have you been all my life?
Steve Thomas: And are you all still close and still communicate all the time? I know you’re away from the other two. None of you are, like, really close to each other, but they’re on the West Coast, and you’re more Midwest.
Maryan Liban: Yeah. Yeah, we still do frequent FaceTimes, calls, check-ins. Yeah, I love Isabel. She is, as you probably can tell from the film, she’s very much like the actionable, like we’re gonna get things done type of person so she has us on a career planning mission. So whenever we get together, we started this on the Roadtrip, but we did this at ARSL conference last week, trying to envision, “Okay, Isabelle, I see you going this direction professionally. Jenny, I see you doing this.” And so we do that a lot where we’re just like, “Okay, I know you have these really great traits, and if it was up to me, you would go in this direction.” So yeah I love just daydreaming and chatting with them quite often.
And we give each other updates. We all have really cool things happening in our lives since the Roadtrip, and it’s been really wholesome to see like that progress.
Steve Thomas: Did you come out having a little more clarity and, now, however many months later, are you more clear or are you still working your way through it?
Maryan Liban: I feel like I came out more clear, but like clear in the chaos type of thing. I feel like before going in I was very rigid in my understanding of what type of librarian that I could be. I thought that I only wanted to be a public librarian. I only wanted to be a youth services librarian but going on this Roadtrip, I’ve actually fallen in love with academic librarianship and seeing that there’s so many different outreach opportunities within academic librarianship. And being able to speak with people like Kelly or Sarah, who started in public librarianship but went a completely different path, I think was eye-opening that again, I just, I don’t have to restrict myself.
So I think that was a really great thing that came out of the Roadtrip. I have been applying to jobs in the library and still trying to find that professional, full-time career. But I think I just became more stern in the fact that what I wanna be is the most authentic librarian, and even if that doesn’t lead to a library role today right now, whatever career I go into will ultimately lead me back to librarianship.
Fun update, I did recently get a job offer for our Nationwide Children’s Hospital, which is really fun, and even though it’s not a librarian role, I’ll be doing their programming, so coming up with really cool activities for the kids to do. And I’m already like, I have a whole plot where I’m trying to turn it into a little mini library, right? So bringing library programming to our children’s hospital, and so yeah, just always trying to figure out ways I can continue being a librarian no matter what hat I put on.
Steve Thomas: Yeah. That’s great. And you can be a librarian other places, like even if your job title is not librarian. If you described that to me, that would seem like a librarian role to me.
What would you say to someone who’s considering librarianship, but they’re not even to the point where you guys were at the beginning of this. How would you encourage them to let them know that there is a place for them in librarianship?
Maryan Liban: I think for me, the biggest thing that I’ve learned from this Roadtrip is that we all have something to contribute, right? We all have passions and interests and things that we naturally gravitate towards, and the library needs all of that because everyone goes to the library, and everyone can benefit from the library.
So I would say, we need you, and come and bring your authentic self. Again, I really like anime and graphic novels and super nerdy in that sense, and we need that in the library. I’ve been seeing a lot of great adult programming that’s for sewing or crocheting. There’s something for everyone, and if you have that talent, the library could be that place for you. Again, librarianship isn’t just reading books, so be ready to balance that joy with also some really hard days. But we want you and we need you, so join the club.
I think the ARSL Conference is a great example of this, but everywhere we went, there was just a strong sense of community and belonging. I think something that I just struggle interpersonally with was this idea of do I belong in library spaces? Is this the space for me? And if anyone is having those doubts, this is just a reminder that there are so many great people who are willing to help you in your career, and library people are some of the greatest people we’ll ever meet, so join the club, again.
Steve Thomas: Thank you so much for doing the show, doing the interviews. And again I’m so happy, Maryan, that you had such a great experience with it. I think I speak for everybody watching it of to give our best to Isabelle and Jenny as well ’cause I hope the best for you all and hope to hear about you all in the profession just going forward, just, oh, that’s that person that was in that documentary. And thank you, Lori and Leah, for choosing this for your topic and putting it together ’cause it was fantastic, and like you said, it was so great, and we need to see Beyond Books 2!
Leah Bleich: Yes, please. Oh, my God. I would be so happy to run it back.
Steve Thomas: Yeah, Beyond Books 2: East Coast! Thank you all for joining me so much, and again I included the link in the show notes to the documentary, so make sure you watch that and like we’ve said several times in here, go to the website and watch all the other interviews, too. So just what’s on your PBS station is not everything. Go to the website and see all those in-depth interviews ’cause they’re really good. Thank you all so much.
Leah Bleich: Thank you, Steve.
Maryan Liban: Thank you!
