Behind the Desk at the Main: A Librarian's Memoir

From a celebrated librarian and public historian, a memoir about the promise of public libraries in a fractured world.

"This wonderful book appeals to the heart as well as to the mind, challenging the dark times we live in." --Azar Nafisi, author of author of Read Dangerously and Reading Lolita in Tehran

When Dorothy Lazard became a public librarian, she returned to the building that had shaped her life from childhood. At the flagship branch ("the Main") of the Oakland Public Library, she connected with her hometown to a degree that few people experience. Helping her fellow community members and ultimately becoming the keeper of Oakland's public history archives, she witnessed the joys and dilemmas that shape one of the most diverse cities in the US. In Behind the Desk at the Main, Lazard takes readers through the day-to-day life of library work with love, wit, and candor. As the cracks in American society grow and our public institutions are strained to the breaking point, libraries remain the cherished containers of our ideals: They are places of curiosity, imagination, memory, and togetherness. Lazard reveals the pressures that library workers face--from economic crises to book bans and political upheaval--as they uphold these ideals in a fractured world. Filled with humor and urgency, Behind the Desk at the Main is a testament to the power of books and community in a time of division.

Dorothy Lazard was born in St. Louis and grew up in San Francisco and Oakland. A librarian for nearly forty years, she joined the staff of the Oakland Public Library in 2000. From 2009 until her retirement in 2021, she was the head librarian of OPL's Oakland History Center, where she encouraged people of all ages and backgrounds to explore local history. Lazard was the 2023 recipient of the Oscar Lewis Award in Western History from the Book Club of California. Her first book, What You Don't Know Will Make a Whole New World: A Memoir, was published by Heyday in 2023; the book was shortlisted for a Northern California Book Award and a Foreword Indies Award. Lazard lives in Oakland.