“My practice of librarianship, creative placemaking, and collective action is deeply rooted in an attempt to save lives before they are even remotely at risk.” – Jared Mitchell, MMLIS ‘26
Jared Mitchell currently serves as a Library Assistant in the Oakland Public Library system, working across all 18 of the city’s library branches. As a Library Assistant, Mitchell engages in citywide trainings, community outreach, and special library projects. He also staffs the circulation desk, allowing him to interact with patrons from around the city, but his passion for serving his community through librarianship began years prior.
As a political science undergraduate student at UC Riverside, Mitchell learned that “people make places and places make people” during a course taught by former Riverside Mayor Ronald Loveridge. After earning his bachelor’s degree, Mitchell interned for the California Department of Education. He went on to serve as a Staff Assistant for the U.S. House of Representatives, working with lawmakers to advocate for constituents in his community. When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, Mitchell pivoted to holding virtual community mixers to support his friends and neighbors during isolation and to create that sense of shared community space online.
In early 2023, however, Mitchell was in a terrible car accident at a three-way intersection. “That intersection changed me,” he said. “More than 2.5 years later, my nervous system, muscles, joints, and bones are still learning how to process the force and damage of that car collision…And in my opinion, that intersection, at the time of that collision, was designed to cause a collision.”
This incident highlighted to Mitchell the ways that public space, whether an intersection on the road or a building full of books, can impact the ways we interact with each other, and that when we design places with good intentions, we can create environments for better, safer interactions between people. Mitchell believes that the concept of positive public spaces has significantly impacted his practice of librarianship, and he aims to create better environments that foster a sense of caring for one another.
How Supporting the Community Led to Discovering Librarianship
After recovering from the accident, while seeking ways to improve his community, Mitchell noticed an “inequitable pattern” in the location of little free libraries across the city. Some parts of the town had many little free libraries, while other neighborhoods had none. He started building his own little free library, accessible to those in his community, to help address this inequity. He also began a professional certificate program in librarianship, activism, and justice offered by the California Rare Book School (CalRBS).
Mitchell was seeking an interdisciplinary program that would enable him to continue creating impactful spaces and serve others when he discovered USC’s Master of Management in Library and Information Science program. “Even as I spent many years gravitating towards practicing librarianship, I didn’t entirely know that I wanted to become a librarian…The more that I researched USC’s program, the more I realized that practicing librarianship is exactly what I’ve been attempting to do over the past decade,” Mitchell said. He was especially drawn to “USC’s emphasis on developing future-focused leaders to become field advocates and champions.”
Applying Classroom Concepts to the Real World
Mitchell greatly appreciates the online coursework in USC’s MMLIS. He is regularly inspired by the “robust online learning environment that includes weekly virtual live class sessions [with] student-to-student conversations that develop our community of practice.” When asked to share a favorite course, Mitchell highlighted LIM 503 Information Organization and Description for User Engagement. “Metadata description was a really fun course that transformed how I think about both what is happening and what is possible [in the field],” he said. In the course, he was also excited to learn about the functional requirements of bibliographic records, the Dublin Core metadata standard, linked data, and the Semantic Web. “I’m always using everything I’ve learned throughout my coursework to assess how I can be most present and effective at serving my community,” he shared.
Balancing work and school has been a dynamic experience for Mitchell. He’s turned to journaling, risk matrices, and the strong support of his family, friends, and community. For those considering starting the MMLIS program but aren’t sure about the workload, Mitchell said, “You’re more ready than you may recognize. Believe in yourself, and let everything else work itself out.”
The primary library Mitchell currently works at as a Library Assistant houses the city’s circulating collection of African American materials. Mitchell said that it was “a really cool honor” to be part of hosting such an important collection for his local community, and he is excited to continue to engage in “creative placekeeping” after he graduates. “I’m really interested in the trends of creative placemaking/keeping and collective impact…That’s where I feel the most inspired and gratified,” he said.
Post-graduation, Mitchell also wants to serve on the city’s library commission, sell artist books in Tokyo, Japan, and meet all of the speakers from the “Preserving Presidential History” conversation held at the 2023 Presidential Sites Summit. He hopes to support the Internet Archive and Wikimedia Foundation with archiving and preserving born-digital information items as well.
He’s inspired to connect people and care for these shared environments we all exist in together. “I still believe in humanity,” he shared. “We’re experiencing a historically tough time, but I believe in us.”
