Laura Raphael desperately wants to pull a John Updike and write "Laura Raphael is a librarian in Tulsa, Oklahoma" and nothing more—thus showing just how famous and important she is. Alas, she is neither, and now Laura Raphael will stop writing about herself in the third person.
I am, in fact, an Associate Librarian in the Readers' Library department in the Central Library of the Tulsa City-County Library, a position I've held since 2006.
(I always like to point out, more in incredulity and amazement than in any sense of personal comparison, that this was the department Nancy Pearl worked in when she was in Tulsa more than 30 years ago. How cool is THAT?)
At my library, with the support of the greatest manager in the universe (Cindy Hulsey), I've had the crazy fun wide-open opportunity to do things like write and perform a one-woman comedy show about the Dewey Decimal system ("Oh, Dewey!"), co-create and coordinate a literature discussion series that attempts to explore nonfiction topics like human memory and mental illness through the lens of great works of fiction (Novel Talk, which won a 2011 award from the Oklahoma Humanities Council), and co-found and participate in Your Next Great Read, a personalized Readers' Advisory service modeled on Williamsburg Regional Library's service.
My pre-library background is in teaching and writing, which goes along with my education so far: a B.A. in English and Secondary Education and a M.A. in English Literature. I should finish my MLIS from the University of Oklahoma next spring.
It goes without saying (right?), but I'm an avid reader whose personal motto is "Bring a book" and who agrees with Margaret Atwood that reading is an addiction I would rather not give up.
You can read some of my writing at
One Small Good Thing and email me at LauraRaphael at hotmail dot com.
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