San Jose State librarian, Kathryn Blackmer Reyes was recently honored with the I Love My Librarian award.
The American Library Association awards 10 librarians each year, who receive a $5,000 prize.
The American Library Association is a nonprofit organization in the U.S. that aims to promote libraries and library education, according to the organization's website.
The award recognizes the accomplishments of school, community college, university and public librarians, according to ilovelibraries, a website for an American Library Association initiative.
Blackmer Reyes said she has worked and stayed at SJSU for 15 years because she believes the stories of the city’s minority population have been undermined.
“San Jose is a really important city, and sometimes I feel that it’s underlooked because of either where it’s positioned geographically – and I think also sometimes the minority population of San Jose is overlooked,” she said.
Blackmer Reyes said interest in showcasing minority struggles has increased as social media has become more prevalent.
“I certainly think the phone with its camera has allowed people to see what’s actually going on out there,” Blackmer Reyes said. “That’s why Black Lives Matter has been so important in our conversation, but we would have never gotten there if we [had] not seen what happened to George Floyd.”
While also a librarian, Blackmer Reyes serves as the director of the Africana, Asian American, Chicano and Native American Studies Center.
The center covers 6,000 square feet of space on the fifth floor of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Library, the floor contains various collections of literature regarding cultures the center encompasses, according to SJSU scholarworks.
Blackmer Reyes said making materials like these available to students is a good supplement to the curriculum being taught at the university, and can help inspire change toward a campus that is more sensitive to cultural diversity.
“We want work that is happening in Chicano studies and African American studies [and] Asian American studies to be appreciated,” Blackmer Reyes said. “It’s not just teaching, it’s working with students that are being challenged by the academy, by being in the university.”
Blackmer Reyes said there are aspects of librarianship she feels are overshadowed by people’s preconceptions of the job.
Librarianship is a profession concerned with collecting and arranging books and similar materials in libraries and providing these resources to readers, according to dictionary.com.
“What makes a good librarian, or what’s not understood in this sort of reference question, is that it really is just a conversation with the patron or student, in many senses I don’t like the term ‘patron,’ ” Blackmer Reyes said. “It’s just talking and figuring it out, and trying to provide the best tool for the need rather than just giving the product.”
Senior assistant librarian Adriana Poo said she has sporadically worked with Blackmer Reyes during her tenure at MLK Library.
She said it's inspiring to see the dedication Blackmer Reyes puts into her collections, and believes her work taps into a greater call for change.
“She’ll go out into the community and she’ll make connections and she’ll bring community members in to share what they’re doing,” Poo said.
Poo said one of Blackmer Reyes’ strongest abilities is having the community share different aspects of their culture in the form of library exhibits.
She said Blackmer Reyes’ fundraising for the fifth floor makes her work invaluable and isn’t a responsibility shared by all librarians.
“She also has to be in charge of fundraising for her center, but she is so passionate and I think her passion has allowed her to be in unique spaces and meet very unique people, and through her passion [people] have opened up their collections to Kathy,” Poo said.
Senior assistant librarian Estella Inda said she has worked closely with Kathryn since she became a librarian for SJSU.
Inda previously worked as a librarian for the general San Jose Public Library for 18 years before switching to her current position.
She said Blackmer Reyes has been a mentor-like figure for her as she navigates her new responsibilities.
“Her knowledge is impeccable, through her I learned the importance of making community connections, keeping those community connections, [and] using the community as a resource has been very vital to my own projects,” Inda said. “Guidance wise I can’t even say how much stuff I’ve learned from her.”
Inda said viewing Blackmer Reyes as an adviser is not a sentiment shared solely by her.
She said many librarians at MLK Library have been inspired by her work and the way in which she runs her center.
“I learned to elaborate further because of Kathy, she’s helped inspire a lot of us, she mentors many of us,” Inda said.
She said Blackmer Reyes has grown the Africana, Asian American, Chicano and Native American Studies Center into something spectacular.
Senior assistant librarian Anne Marie Engelsen said Blackmer Reyes’ recognition was long overdue and her work is indispensable to everyone.
“The work that Kathy does is making sure that in the future our history, our current lives are not going to be told just from one viewpoint,” Engelsen said. “I’m so proud of her, I’m so happy that she won that award and I just feel it was a long time coming and I’m just glad it finally happened.”
