{"id":446679,"date":"2026-08-29T00:48:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-29T00:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/446679\/"},"modified":"2026-08-29T00:48:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T00:48:10","slug":"for-dorothy-lazard-the-public-library-was-a-forest-of-dreams-and-possibilities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/446679\/","title":{"rendered":"For Dorothy Lazard, the public library was \u2018a forest of dreams and possibilities\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dorothy Lazard retired as a librarian five years ago, but she has kept up a busy schedule as an author. She is now celebrating the release of her second book to appear since her retirement from the Oakland Public Library, \u201cBehind the Desk at the Main,\u201d<\/a> from Berkeley publishing house Heyday. The book recounts the story of Lazard\u2019s four-decade career as a librarian, how she landed her job at Oakland\u2019s main library, and the bittersweet moments that marked her time helping patrons navigate the library on 14th Street.<\/p>\n

In the book, Lazard writes about how libraries still play a pivotal role in promoting civics and literacy and serving as community hubs despite headwinds including budgetary constraints, book ban campaigns, changes in technology and the rapid rise of AI. She also describes the pivotal role she and her fellow Oakland librarians played during the pandemic and the safety threats they sometimes faced.<\/p>\n

The memoir is also effectively a reference book filled with Oakland literary facts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lazard writes that Oakland\u2019s first library, the Oakland Free Library, was established in 1878, just 26 years after the city\u2019s founding. She notes that in 2021, when Oakland had a population of 433,823, the library system had an extraordinary 402,768 active library card holders. She also writes that the library\u2019s Asian branch on 9th Street, an effort championed by librarian Judy Yung, was the first of its kind in the country. Or, how Oakland librarian Ina Coolbrith inspired and mentored author Jack London.<\/p>\n

Lazard dedicated over two decades<\/a> to the branch where she started at the reference desk, then took over the reins of the Oakland History Center.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lazard writes about how she spearheaded the name change from the Oakland History Room to the Oakland History Center. That change, she writes, was inspired by the late author and artist Jeff Norman<\/a>, whom Lazard calls the \u201cunofficial historian of Oakland Temescal,\u201d who had suggested the name change because, among other reasons, \u201cthe quaint word \u2018room\u2019 fails to capture the variety and depth of intellectual industry that goes on there.\u201d When Norman died of cancer in 2019, Lazard successfully petitioned for a departmental name change to honor him.<\/p>\n

During her time at the reference desk, Lazard writes, she would field a hilarious range of questions from patrons, from the basic (\u201cWhere\u2019s your nonfiction section?\u201d) to the silly (\u201cHow do you say Oakland in Pig Latin?\u201d) to the poignant, such as a question from one English learner, \u201cWhat would you call the man who is seeing your girlfriend? Would you call him your date?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019d go home and even if you couldn\u2019t find the answer for the patron, you at least set them on a journey to try to find the answer on their own,\u201d Lazard told The Oaklandside. \u201cOr, maybe you did find an answer, but those questions would resonate and stay with you for a while because you\u2019d wonder why this person needs to know this, or what\u2019s going on in their life where they\u2019re having this question?\u201d<\/p>\n

Lazard\u2019s connection to the main branch dates back decades when, as a student at Castlemont High School, she\u2019d spent her afternoons perusing its aisles.<\/p>\n

\u201cAimless as a ghost, I haunted its departments trying to absorb as much as I could from each area I wandered into,\u201d she writes in the book. \u201cI found the library a seductive palace, a forest of dreams and possibilities. Lured by its expansiveness and intrigued by its community, I was eager to learn about everything that piqued my interests.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Dorothy Lazard\u2019s new book was released on Aug. 18. Credit: courtesy of Heyday<\/p>\n

An abrupt cancellation<\/p>\n

Given her history with the branch, it seemed fitting to hold her book launch there. The event was scheduled for Aug. 19, and Lazard was thrilled to return to the place she had considered her second home. That excitement turned into shock and anger when a month before the event was to take place, the launch event was abruptly canceled.<\/p>\n

Many, including Lazard, saw it as censorship.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAny info on this? Ms. Lazard helped me research on several occasions very efficiently,\u201d read one Facebook post<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is outrageous and ironic: A public library cancelling a talk about such library because it couldn\u2019t cope with a little criticism. This will backfire on Oakland. And drive book sales,\u201d someone else wrote on Reddit<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lazard said she only learned the news when a librarian at the main branch called her on July 15 asking her why the event had been canceled.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIs my event being canceled?\u201d Lazard recalled responding. \u201cI hadn\u2019t heard anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Through a public records request, The Oaklandside obtained the email that library director Jamie Turbak had written to library staff notifying them of the event\u2019s cancellation, saying the \u201cprogram is not an appropriate fit for the Oakland Public Library\u201d and that Lazard had been notified.<\/p>\n

Lazard said it took scrolling through various email accounts, some of which she rarely uses, to locate an email from the library\u2019s community relations manager, Tarshel Beards, which The Oaklandside separately obtained.<\/p>\n

Beards says in the email that she\u2019d received and reviewed and advanced copy of the book, and then writes, \u201cAfter careful consideration, we have determined that the book talk\/launch program scheduled for August is not an appropriate fit for the Oakland Public Library and the Oakland History Center, because the book centers on your experiences as a former employee. We believe sponsoring this event would create an institutional conflict, and we are unable to move forward with hosting the program.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was personally hurt. I was personally insulted,\u201d Lazard told The Oaklandside. \u201cBut here\u2019s a more frightening, troublesome issue for me. We are already in an era of censorship, book bans, and people demonizing librarians, calling them pornographers, saying that they\u2019re grooming kids, and banning anything that is about BIPOC LGBT+ community members. When the library itself starts to self-censor, we have fallen down a really deep, dark rabbit hole that we may not come out of.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lazard was aware that her book was at times critical of the library, describing instances when her safety and that of her colleagues was at risk. In one passage, she describes an encounter with a patron who had been accosting female staff with sexual threats and violent outbursts. Library workers, she writes, are \u201cbesieged with social problems that extend well beyond the library\u2019s capacity to provide real help for the neediest people entering the building.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lazard said that she had not spoken to anyone in management at the library since receiving Beard\u2019s email. But Steve Wasserman, Heyday\u2019s publicist, emailed Beards, asking the library to reconsider its decision given Lazard\u2019s illustrious career at the branch.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In his July 27 email, obtained by The Oaklandside, Wasserman writes, \u201cSurely you can understand that by disinviting Dorothy, you risk dishonoring the very institution you serve and whose interests you have at heart.\u201d<\/p>\n

He adds, \u201cThe optics aren\u2019t good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beards responded the same day, in an email The Oaklandside obtained, saying: \u201cThank you for your message and thoughts. Consistent with Oakland Public Library\u2019s mission and Collection Development Policy, OPL will order copies of \u2019Behind the Desk at the Main: A Librarian\u2019s Memoir by Dorothy Lazard\u2019 for the circulating collection.\u201d<\/p>\n

The reasoning behind Turbak\u2019s decision only became clear yesterday, when the library system responded to The Oaklandside\u2019s public records request.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In one of the emails we obtained, dated August 27 and sent to Sean Maher, the city\u2019s communications director, along with some members of the library staff, Turbak writes, \u201cIn her book, Ms. Lazard cites the first name and the first and last name of library patrons in describing the books and resources they sought and used. There are at least four separate instances of this in the book.\u201d<\/p>\n

Turbak goes on to explain that Lazard\u2019s decision to name patrons in her book violates California Government Code 7927.105<\/a>, which prohibits sharing any \u201cpersonally identifiable uses of library resources, information requests, or inquiries.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Oakland Public Library\u2019s expectation of all employees, past and present, is that they respect the privacy of our patrons and comply with the corresponding rules and regulations,\u201d Maher told The Oaklandside. \u201cWhile the book in question remains widely available in our system for OPL patrons to borrow and read, we chose not to host a book event because it violates those expectations.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The memoir does in fact pay tribute to the countless patrons Lazard helped during her tenure, from high school students looking for guidance on how to research a topic, to journalists needing to fact check a story, to older patrons who found community through the library\u2019s programming. And Lazard named a few of her favorites, such as a man who learned how to read thanks to the library\u2019s Second Start adult literacy program<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI genuinely didn\u2019t know that,\u201d Lazard told The Oaklandside when asked about the potential code violation. \u201cThe reason why I wrote about those patrons is because I wanted to honor how much they meant to me when I was a librarian.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy didn\u2019t Tarshel [Beards] tell me this when she first emailed me?\u201d Lazard said.<\/p>\n

For weeks, Lazard had been convinced that the book was being censored because she\u2019d written about safety concerns at the library, an issue that was formally addressed by Oakland Public Library management just months after Lazard retired.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOPL decided not to host an event promoting the book, which I\u2019d argue is pretty different from censorship, especially since the book is readily available to library patrons,\u201d said Maher.<\/p>\n

In June 2022, the Oakland Public Library hired a consultant, Joseph Maurer of Omni Mediation, to address safety concerns and burnout among the system\u2019s librarians. According to the resulting report<\/a>, Maurer met with 50 staff members working at all levels of the library system, many of whom mentioned how \u201cthe culture of the library has changed and [patron\u2019s] behavior that would have once been unacceptable is now tolerated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of the low staff morale, the report concluded, \u201cThe Oakland Public Library is at an inflection point and needs to decide upon its path for the future or its path may be decided for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lazard\u2019s book touches on similar themes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMy coworkers had been worn down to a nub,\u201d Lazard writes in the chapter titled \u201cWhy We Leave.\u201d Our principal concerns were about safety \u2014 the public\u2019s as well as our own. Library staff were routinely threatened by angry or mentally unstable patrons. And the threats and violence had only increased in recent years.\u201d<\/p>\n

A librarian at heart<\/p>\n

In the wake of the library\u2019s event cancellation, Lazard went on to have a sold-out launch at The New Parkway on Aug. 19, where she was in conversation with radio host and author Alexis Madrigal. The two talked about the need to preserve libraries as civic institutions and how AI is changing the landscape of literacy. Some audience members wanted to know why the event had been moved from the library to The New Parkway Theater.<\/p>\n

The event was so engaging, she said, that there wasn\u2019t enough time to field through all of the audience questions before the event ended.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Some days after the event, Lazard told The Oaklandside she remains a librarian at heart.<\/p>\n

\u201cI miss the people. I miss my coworkers. I miss the people who would come in,\u201d Lazard said. \u201cI miss doing something good for people every day. That was the joy of my life.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is not just the books and other materials that make the library a community resource,\u201d she writes in her book. \u201cIt\u2019s the dedicated skilled people who invite the community to ably guide them through the library that make the place socially important.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the book is mostly about Lazard\u2019s time at the main, it also serves as a tribute to Lazard\u2019s sister Sarah, who played a central role in Lazard\u2019s journey as a bibliophile. It was Sarah who helped her get her first library card, at San Francisco\u2019s Western Addition branch.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was the first avid reader I knew, and introduced me to poetry and gothic tales and history,\u201d Lazard writes. \u201cHer curiosity about the world piqued my own desire to know more.\u201d<\/p>\n

After Sarah died in 2024, Lazard was the one who cleared out her sister\u2019s home.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmong the many beautiful and elegant things in her Chicago condo,\u201d Lazard writes, \u201cSarah\u2019s bookshelves told a rich and nuanced story.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lazard said her favorite of Sarah\u2019s most prized books in her extensive collection was the \u201cEbony Pictorial History of Black America,\u201d released in 1971.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was the first encyclopedia set that she had invested in buying when I was young,\u201d Lazard told The Oaklandside.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One of Lazard\u2019s last acts before retiring, she told The Oaklandside, was to lead an in-depth training for reference librarians on how to preserve the library\u2019s African American Reference Collection, pointing out how the collection, which includes rare encyclopedia sets published in the 1960s, served as a \u201ctype of historical retrospective, capturing so much of the history we had not been taught in school for hundreds of years.\u201d<\/p>\n

And her book offers readers a call to action during a period of assaults on the First Amendment by the Trump administration. \u201cWe must fight for everyone\u2019s right to read what they want,\u201d she writes. \u201cThat freedom is the bedrock of our democracy, a symbol of our personal and national independence. It is what binds us together as a nation, educates us, teaches us to appreciate and respect each other, and, as a result, dare I say it, civilizes us. The erosion of that freedom impacts all of us in direct and indirect ways.\u201d<\/p>\n

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