8 Questions – July 2011

Eight Questions for Cory Dickason
Youth Services Librarian

by Fowler Roberts

Q. What got you interested in applying for the Youth Services Librarian job for the City of Gallup?
A. My biggest passion in terms of children and young adult librarianship is bringing literacy to underserved populations – not just text literacy but also technology literacy, which I think is as important in the 21^st century.  I thought that Gallup would provide a good place to do that and I have also always wanted to live in New Mexico, so it seemed like a really good fit.

Q. What do you enjoy most about your job?
A. I love kid interaction; it’s my favorite thing.  Yesterday a kid came in who didn’t have a library card but he had just read the first Madeleine L’Engle book, a Wrinkle in Time, and he really wanted the second one.  So he sat there for a couple of hours reading it.

Q. What is the biggest challenge of your job?
A. I think just not having enough time to put in all of the program ideas and all of the community outreach ideas I want to get done.  I have so many ideas and I can’t do them all at once.

Q. What is your number one priority with your job?
A. My number one priority is to make sure that the programming and services that we are offering are what the community needs and wants and that the community knows what programs and services we offer.

Q. What do you see Gallup’s highest potential as being?
A. I have only been here for a month and there is so much going on in Gallup that I am really excited to find out about.  But there are a lot of voices in Gallup that are not heard on the national stage very often and I think that given a voice, the experiences of the Gallup community members could be really eye-opening for the rest of the country.

Q. What do you enjoy doing in your off time?
A. I read and knit, but, at the moment, I am planning a wedding with most of my off time.

Q. What is your favorite book?
A. Red Sky at Morning by Richard Bradford.   It is set in a fictional little town in New Mexico, up in the mountains.  And there is a kid who moves from Mobile, Alabama, in the middle of the Second World War.  It is just a perfect time capsule – a little vignette of one kid coming of age.  It is perfectly put together so that at the end you feel like you know that kid and his experience perfectly.

Q. If you could trade places with one famous person, who would it be, and why?
A. I really am fond of my life.  (laughs) You know maybe Idina Menzel.  She’s a Broadway actress.  I am tone deaf and it would be really nice to know what it was like to have an entirely different skill set than my own.