Carey McKinnon stars as librarian

 

Carey McKinnon could have been an actress. As a matter of fact, her master’s degree is in theater and communications, and she spent several years attending the Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts’ actor training program.

But because life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans, McKinnon, 50, is now the senior library technician and branch supervisor of the Solvang Branch Library.

Born in Joliet, Ill., she spent three years of her early life in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) when her father, a medical doctor, worked for the Mission Doctors Association.

 

After living in Los Angeles, Solvang, Philadelphia and Chicago, McKinnon married and returned to the valley in 1999.

It was in Chicago that she became interested in library research, and shortly after returning to Solvang, she saw the library was looking for someone with her skills.

“This is a lovely job,” she says. “And it just so happens that I’ve always been a complete bookworm.”

Now that the Internet has become such a large part of our lives, people sometimes forget that the library is a source of more than books to borrow.

 

“You don’t have to go to the library to take advantage of the library,” McKinnon points out. “Our services have changed because of technology, but the technology brings with it great convenience. We are able, because of the Internet, to bring more services to the community.”

Through the library Web site, users can find access to many databases, from factual to recreational, including genealogy, medical, literature and business, to name a few.

They also have available full-text magazine and newspaper archives, including the L.A. Times, which goes back to 1985. And it’s all free.

 

Maybe it’s time for you to visit the library. Stop by and meet McKinnon or visit the library online at www.sbplibrary.org/hourslocations/solvang.

 

The Journal caught up with McKinnon and asked her some questions.

 

SYVJ: What is the best thing about what you do and why?

CM: Getting to meet and assist so many different people — all ages and backgrounds. We have terrific library patrons!

 

SYVJ: If you weren’t a librarian, what would you be doing?

CM: Hmm ... reading too many novels and eating too much chocolate. Actually, I had always thought I’d work in the theater, but life presents chances to take different paths at different times.

 

SYVJ:  What is your favorite thing about the valley?

CM: Like most people here, I love the physical beauty of our area: the scenic vistas and the fact that we are bound north and south by a national forest and wilderness preserve.

 

SYVJ:  What is one thing you would like to see changed in the valley?

CM: We could use more to do in the evenings, more activities available for all ages, especially teens. There is so little for them to do — no bowling alley, few late night cafes, only one movie theatre. We can do better for our wonderful, creative young people.

 

SYVJ: What is the one thing you hope will never change?

CM: People living here who have a genuine interest in each other.

 

SYVJ:  What books are on your bedside table?

CM: Right now I am working through Patrick O’Brian’s “The Commodore”; Leonard Shlain “The Alphabet vs. the Goddess”; Thomas L. Friedman’s new book, “Hot Flat and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution”; “Early Bright,” a new novel by Ami Silber, “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee,” by Dee Brown — and at any time there are half a dozen children’s or teen novels on top of that stack, which, I admit, are both professional research and my favorite entertainment.

 

SYVJ:  Who is the one person you would most like to meet and why?

CM: Do I have to pick only one? There are two authors who come first to mind: one is Salman Rushdie and another, much admired, is Arundhati Roy. Both of these because they speak to me of realities and peoples I have no personal experience with; their works expand my imagination and somehow continue to live there.

 

SYVJ: What do you think you will be doing in five years?

CM: I hope still listening to people around me. And, if I am still at the library, I hope I am checking out books to people in a new, larger Solvang Library.

 

SYVJ: What is something people would be surprised to know about you?

CM: I am a closet Spiderman fan.

 

SYVJ: What is your personal motto?

CM: My father always had Calvin Coolidge’s words on his dresser: “Nothing in this world will take the place of persistence,” and I do think of those often. Coupling that with the guiding light of curiosity, I could add that I persistently seek to be either amused or amazed at the world around me. It seldom disappoints.

 

Reach Barbara Lanz-Mateo at bmateo@syvjournal.com.