OKLAHOMA CITY — It’s not just the vast range of clients and customers that makes the Downtown branch of the Metropolitan Library System unique among libraries.
It’s also the system’s community outreach hub, an informational lifeline for the Internet Age, a wildly diverse community meeting point, and an event space that’s hosted some decidedly different engagements from what you might expect.
And, unlike the perception of “special collections” as dusty archives that are kept just for posterity, their materials are still called upon in preparation for current projects and developments.
“We have a wide variety of guests here,” Downtown Library Manager Jason Wiggins told Free Press. “We welcome everyone.”
On an average day, the branch sees between 700 and 800 people come through its doors.
“We get a lot of tourists and a lot of people that live in the area in the Park and Harvey Apartments,” Wiggins said. “We get lots of business people because we’re right next to the Devon Tower. We get a lot of traffic from the courthouse, but we’re also the school library for John Rex Elementary and Junior High. And yeah, we do have a large unhoused population that uses the library.”
Twenty years ago this summer, Oklahoma City officials and volunteers stood shoulder to shoulder, lining the streets of Downtown to pass books by hand from the old Main Library at Dean McGee and Robinson into a brand new four-story, strikingly curved white building on Park Avenue.
Christened the Ronald J. Norick Downtown Library, that building would come to be an anchor of the Downtown district.
Outreach and assistance
The daily life of a Downtown Library librarian likely looks different from the usual expectations of the job.
In the modern age, a librarian deals far less exclusively with books and much more with digital materials, discs, computers, and the internet, and particularly at the Downtown location, much of the job is now focused on helping library customers to navigate those platforms.
“A lot of what we do is helping people with computers and the internet,” Wiggins said. “We get a lot of people trying to access government benefits or apply for jobs and we help them get that going.”
Wiggins said that it’s understood that, in addition to the numerous business professionals and researchers that regularly utilize the branch’s services, a good portion of the daily clientele comes from the city’s homeless population accessing services or just enjoying time indoors through the day.
Representatives from The Homeless Alliance come weekly, and the library even sends outreach staff across the street to the courthouse to direct city residents to services they may need.
“We’ll have people waiting at the door at 9 AM, and they might be there on a public computer all day long,” Wiggins said. “We really try to provide information and resources and get people pointed in the right direction if they’re struggling, but we welcome everyone in the library.”
That can mean that, rather than stocking and cataloging books, a librarian or aide might spend their days assisting anyone from an elderly customer to an unhoused city resident to any of the full classes of schoolchildren from John Rex that come into the branch.
It’s a part of the job that Wiggins said anyone applying surely understands and embraces.
“I don’t think they’d stay very long if they weren’t aware ahead of time,” he said. “It’s very active. You know, when a class of 40 schoolchildren comes in, it’s not going to be a very ‘shush’-y place.”
Special Collections
Another unique element of the Downtown Library is the presence of the Metropolitan System’s “special collections,” curated collections of materials and records related to specific subjects housed in the branch and often available to study and peruse but not to check out.
The collections cover a broad range of subject matters and materials, including:
- Genealogy.
- The Holocaust.
- Oklahoma Collection, including a complete set of Sanborn Fire Maps, books, histories, records, and more.
- Topographic maps from the U.S. Geological Survey.
- Vertical file, a collection 90 years in the making. Contents include newspaper clippings, meeting and/or annual reports of committees and agencies, flyers and programs, and maps.
- Microform collections of newspapers, magazines, and limited numbers of Federal and Oklahoma government publications.
- Oklahoma Contemporary Art Collection, the library’s newest special collection.
While these collections are compiled and managed by library administration, there are often designated staffers that can help guests navigate the information.
“We have librarians that are dedicated to specific parts of the collection and are considered the local subject matter expert for that collection,” said Janeal Walker, Director of Collection Services and Development for the Metropolitan Library System. “Any part of the collection has a dedicated kind of point person, and part of their job is to know the collection and know what the community needs are.”
Library out loud
Life and work at the Downtown Library isn’t all about information in books, computers, and collected materials, though, and it’s certainly not all about keeping quiet.
Sometimes, it’s about cranking up the volume and engaging the community in person.
“We had, arguably, a real library mosh pit last year,” Wiggins laughed.
Last July, library staff and organizers hosted hardcore punk rockers Inferna, Shaka, and Primal Brain for an uncharacteristically wild concert inside the Downtown Library walls.
And coming up on November 7th, the location will host the first of the newly coined Library Out Loud series, featuring experimental acts Bird Drugs, Ut Mutem, and Tired Ocean.
That’s all thanks to the efforts of library staffers themselves, many of whom are members of the local music community, and who have created the heavily DIY-spirited OK Underground Music Archive (UMA) and the UMAmi zine that goes out to shops and businesses across the city.
It’s all a part of the mission of the Metro System – and of the Downtown branch in particular – to provide a space and a resource hub for the community in all its various forms and perspectives.
“We need to have events and displays that reflect the community, and the community is very diverse,” said Wiggins. “So we try and make sure that the staff does a really good job of bringing in a lot of those issues and different viewpoints.”
‘A third place’
More than perhaps any other traditional library branch in OKC – and surely more than any other free location or resource – the Downtown Library can genuinely boast that they have something for everyone.
In addition to the public computers, the large-scale event and conference spaces, the on-premises café, the children’s activity and learning area, the special collections, and the more than 100,000 books on-site, the Downtown staff believe what they offer is real community.
“It’s kind of like a cross between a community center and retail and a museum,” Walker said of the Downtoan Library. “We see ourselves as a third place for people. You know, most people have home, and then they have work or school, and then the library can serve as that third place where you can come in and have a connection and just engage in whatever way is needed.”
Brett Fieldcamp is our Arts and Entertainment Editor. He has been covering arts, entertainment, news, housing, and culture in Oklahoma for 15+ years, writing for several local and state publications. He’s also a musician and songwriter and holds a certification as Specialist of Spirits from The Society of Wine Educators.
