Today we’d like to introduce you to Brian Trembath.
Brian, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I had a career in marketing/communications that was pretty so-so and lost a pretty good job during the dot com crash. Right around 2002, after a long period of unemployment, I was working at a sales job that was not a good fit. When I was looking for jobs during that period, the only job my wife noticed I got enthused about was as a librarian role at the Denver Post, where I had a part-time job. My wife suggested that I go to graduate school, which is something I had never considered at all. I had an opportunity to go to University of British Columbia in Vancouver. At the time, I didn’t know it was one of the best library and archive schools in the world, it was just an opportunity to improve my employment prospects and live in a beautiful city. I had a great experience there – we lived there for three years with two small children, which was wonderful. At the end, I came out with two master’s degrees and greatly improved professional opportunities.
When we came back to Colorado, I sent out 80 resumes in a pretty short span. I interviewed at University of Texas – Beaumont, CNN, and Denver Public Library. I got an entry-level job at Denver Public Library in periodicals and Spanish language materials and caught a good break because, during my interview, I found out that I was the first person that interviewed for the position. I told them every other candidate would have more experience than I did, but nobody would want to work at the Denver Public Library as much as I did. And I got the job.
I worked in the reference department for seven and a half years but was always most interested in working at the Western History Department. While I was in graduate school, I did a practicum in this department and it seemed like a good fit. Over the years, I applied to work in western history multiple times. When the special collections librarian job came up, I jumped at it but tempered my expectations. The final interview for the position included a presentation on the website. I was fortunate to have done a lot of freelance work on search engine optimization (SEO) and content marketing over the years so I talked about content marketing, blogging, and SEO. As it turned out, this expertise landed me right in the middle of other finalists who were either too technical or too academic and I got the job. I felt like I caught a major break. I love it at Denver Public Library. It’s been the best job I’ve ever had, every day is a good one here.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
It has not been a smooth road but life never ever is and shouldn’t be.
When I applied for graduate school I didn’t get in on the first pass because my undergraduate grades weren’t good enough. Nineteen-year-old Brian didn’t think about GPA. I caught a break because there was a professor at the university that advocated for older students and I was ultimately admitted to the program.
I’ve always had two jobs; during my first five to six years at Denver Public Library I also had a job at the Denver Post in high school sports where I worked until about 11 most nights, came home, and repeated as necessary. But, as luck would have it, lots of my previous experiences and connections came together and really ended up helping me at the library.
When I first started at the library, I was one of the last people who started before several years hiring freeze. Being one of the last people hired before the freeze, I was very concerned I would lose my job, however, the organization was shepherded well through the recession to ensure nobody was laid off. I was pretty worried those first few years about what I was going to do. Shirley Amore, the City Librarian at the time, did a great job navigating the organization through the economic downturn.
Please tell us about Denver Public Library.
I’m a special collections librarian for the Western History collection. The main part of my job, besides reference, is doing acquisitions for published material for the collection. One of the things Denver Public Library is known for is its Western History collection. We’re known for having a really in-depth collection and having really unique items. We’re one of the top Western History collections in the country, in the same league as Yale and Berkeley. I’m really honored to work on this collection because it is so well known across the country. It’s an honor and a privilege to work with the material here I’ve been given this incredible opportunity.
The Western History department is also known for our high-quality customer service. We often hear positive feedback from our customers along the lines of, “wow I called other places and they wouldn’t go the extra mile for me.” It’s something we do all the time.
I feel like working at a library, especially in these times, that we’re part of the solution, not part of the problem. We joke about it a bit here, but we really are on freedom’s front line. This is where the rubber meets the road and our democracy gets tested but anybody has the freedom to use the library. When you walk up to the desk everyone is treated the same way. I’m really proud to work at a place that hosts a naturalization ceremony every year and has a dedicated staff that works with immigrants and refugees – we’re pushing the right way.
Our collection is so vast and so in-depth it never ceases to amaze me. I learn something new here every day. Denver is very fortunate to have this resource and we get amazing support from the Denver taxpayers. Year in year out, the Western History collection gets great financial support to maintain our edge and have a collection that’s really top-notch.
The people who work at the Western History and Genealogy Department really want to be here and are really committed to keeping the collection relevant for today and a collection that will be relevant 100 years from now.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
In general, I don’t like to look back like that because I think that I’ve really benefited from my “mistakes”. I spent a lot of my 20’s far off the “professional track” and I guess I would probably be financially better off today if I had moved straight from college into a professional career, instead of working in warehouse and working as a bellman at a hotel, and at a record store. But the things I learned during those years are absolutely invaluable to me today. As a bellman at a large hotel, I developed people skills that I use every day at the library and I learned the value of a dollar that’s earned through hard work and hustle. As a clerk at a used book and record store, I learned a lot about the world of collectibles, which is very useful in my current position. All told, I’m very happy with my life and the experiences that have made me who I am today, even the experiences that didn’t seem so beneficial at the time.
Contact Info:
- Address: 10 W. 14th Avenue Parkway
Denver, CO 80204 - Website: denverlibrary.org
- Phone: 720-865-1111
- Instagram: @denverlibrary
- Facebook: @denverpubliclibrary
- Twitter: @denverlibrary
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