Deirdre Brennan Ends her Career with Oak Park Public Library

Deirdre Brennan has made an indelible mark during her six years as the executive director of the Oak Park Public Library system.

Her engaged leadership has brought in a team of creative librarians that has been encouraged to grow and learn. Their work has brought innovative programs and services that have more than brought Oak Park into the digital age - it's opened that world to people, while they cannot afford to own high-end technology, they have been able to learn and use computers, borrow Nooks and the like. Residents can usually find a program that will meet their needs - or their passions.

The library has become an even more popular mecca for people who want to find new worlds to explore. And it's also brought the system a national reputation. This year, the system received the highly-coveted 5-star rating in Library Journal’s Index of Public Library Service. The year before, the system garnered a 4-star ranking.

Brennan is leaving Oak Park to take on a more challenging opportunity. She will lead RAILS, a state-funded effort that allows more than 1,500 libraries across northern and western Illinois to share a wide variety of resources, expertise and services. The system, in effect, attempts to equalize or set a minimum of service for every member (Oak Park is a member). The system's main headquarters is in Burr Ridge. 

On one of her last days in Oak Park, Patch sat down with Brennan to talk about her work here, its challenges and what she will miss about leading Oak Park's system.

Patch: What do you see as some of the challenges ahead for Oak Park, considering how high the bar already is?

Brennan: The challenge is always to be the best library you can be for the community. This is a diverse community in a lot of ways. There are people who want the newest of the new; there are people who just want us to have books. More than any other institution, a library is required to be all things for all people. That's difficult to do, and to some degree it can't (do that). Some people would like it if we had a completely quiet library; that's not possible and so we do things, like establish zones, so people know where they can go to be noisy or quiet. We try to give people options. We can't have everything, which is why we share with other libraries and organizations.

Patch: Specifically what is one challenge?

Brennan: One of the biggest is in the e-publishing area - there are some publishers that won't sell to libraries. It's their choice. They don't understand what we do. They don't understand that we just don't give it away to anyone who wants it for free. You have to have a library card; there's a loan period; (when the loan period ends) the item disappears from the device. I think they were spooked by Napster. One idea (that's been proposed) is to charge per checkout. That make the most sense.

Patch: Are there others?

Brennan: There are people in Oak Park who can't afford devices or readers. They can't afford a computer. They come here to use the computer. A lot of people don't realize there is still a digital divide, and libraries bridge that on a regular basis.

Patch: What can the library do to help bridge that gap more?

Brennan: We've ramped up services for job seekers. We offer lots more classes in collaboration with some nonprofit, employment-related organizations. And people make presentations on resume building (as an example). People come here to apply for jobs as most job applications are done on-line now. There's also the creativity thing. People are into creating, whether it's traditional crafts or improv. Some amazingly popular programs are related to creativity. From knitting to high-end digital creativity, we need to be able to support that.

Finding space for all that is a challenge. People think this building is new; it's 10 years old. It's holding up well. In this building alone this year we've had 500,000 visits this year. That's substantial. There's wear and tear on the building. Buildings age, systems age, the furniture gets heavy use and we have to keep it up. We have to maintain the investment.

Patch: How can you do that? 

Brennan: We have managed our money carefully so we have saved up money for that. We have to get people to understand that. To them the building is new, but the challenge is keeping up the building. People are respectful of the building. We have to keep up with technology and the physical plant. We are making sure that we have the staff to do the work, get the training, understand the technology and who are enthusiastic about it.

Patch: How have you contributed to that?

Brennan: By supporting it financially. People are going to a lot of classes, library industry conferences. People want to go and learn. They are open to that and enthusiastic about it. They are taking it seriously.

Patch: During your six years here, Oak Park's become a five-star library; it's well respected and people love it.

Brennan: We have a national reputation, and I'm very proud of that. I am completely fixated on the fact that it's not my library, it's not the staff's library, it's the public's library. That's absolutely job one. We can't make everybody happy. We're trying to be fair. We try to make this place work for you in the best possible way.

Patch: What have some of the challenges been in running this institution?

Brennan: This is an interesting-sized library and community. We're not a small library and we're not so big that we have centralized resources. We can be agile and move quickly. As it's grown, it's gotten busier and added new services and it's had some growing pains.

Patch: In what way?

Brennan: We used to have staff who part of the time were making flyers and doing marketing. It got to the point where they couldn't do that any more. We needed to be able to tell the story (of the libraries). Sometimes people, librarians included, don't understand why libraries need to do marketing, not in terms of advertising, but telling people what we have. They are paying for it (the library), but how can they take advantage of it without knowing what we have? It has reached the point that with all the devices and the proliferating of applications we need to add a person in IT. (the library has three people just working in IT). We have a website, e-marketing - it's economical and a great way to reach people, but it takes a lot of work to keep it up and current.

Patch: What do you wish you could have accomplished here that you weren't able to?

Brennan: I would have liked to have to been able to get a really stupendous teen space. That could be done in a couple of years; we're planning for it now. I would have loved to have seen a digital media lab, a creative space. It's something libraries (Schaumburg and Skokie being two) are doing. It would have high-end MAC ability to create videos, a recording studio and recording capabilities.

Patch: Is that necessarily something that a library should be doing?

Brennan: It's a piece of that creativity. Residents would not able to use the schools even if there were equipment. Families are not be able to afford it. The library is a perfect spot; it's a community resource. It would be a collaborative space.

As to the teen center, the middle and high school kids need their own room, a place where they can talk. They need to have their own space. There are a lot of kids in this town, and they use the library. We don't want them to annoy other people and sometimes they do. We want them to continue to use the library. They're just being kids - they need space.

Patch: What have you liked about being in Oak Park?

Brennan: This is such an interesting place. Everybody's engaged. People read. They're interested and engaged in everything. It's got so much great history: Hemingway, Frank Lloyd Wright, Betty White, Tarzan, Carol Shields, Elizabeth Berg. The people who live here are great. And it's a great place. The resources people have here in terms of parks and schools (and the library). It's a great community, and you can't beat the location.

Patch: What won't you miss about Oak Park?

Brennan: Well, it's overly political sometimes. I wish there was more true collaboration between the governmental agencies. I have really tried to push that, but it's something I didn't accomplish. Where I come from (Massachusetts), there are fewer independent autonomous divisions. We have towns in Massachusetts, and the town manager is responsible for the entire budget - library, parks, schools, too. And so there's one pie, and that person has to find a way to divide that pie and people have to work together. The pie doesn't get bigger; folks have no choice but to collaborate.

Unfortunately my experience here has led me to believe that you do not collaborate unless you really have to. We talk about it, people really want to do it, but the fact is when they go back to their own institutions, they not have to, so they don't. There is a common purpose, everyone wants to serve Oak Park. There are monthly meetings (presidents of boards, chief executive officers, finance officers). Not that people don't believe in collaboration. I'm afraid they talk about it instead of do it; that seems to be true to me. As a librarian we share, that's what we do. That's what we're all about. SWAN (a system allowing for loaning materials between libraries) is the perfect example of collaboration that benefits everyone. It requires compromise. Librarians are a profession understand that because we share. It makes it harder for me to understand why there isn't more real collaboration in a place like this.

Patch: Do you have any words of encouragement for your successor?

Brennan: This is a great community - listen to the community, really keep an eye on the future, anticipate, not just be responsive - and this library will be just fine.