This article, by Daniela Buchberger, was originally published in the Arizona Daily Star on October 21, 2024.
I emigrated to the United States as a young teenager with my family. Libraries have always been a place my mother and I found ourselves. I remember arriving in Tucson in the beginning of June the year I turned 19—one of the first things we did was go to the Kirk-Bear Canyon library to get our library cards.
At this point, being a librarian was not at all a plan of mine, even though there were plenty of clues that it would be a match. None of my career interests felt like the perfect fit and then I found myself teaching young children in preschool and discovering that reading with children was my favorite thing to do. I left teaching and I started pursuing my master's degree in library and information science. During my studies, I would visit Ajo as an early literacy coach and even spent some time at the Salazar-Ajo Library taking advantage of the free Wi-Fi.
I became a children’s librarian in the spring of 2019 and within my first year, the whole world of libraries was turned upside down. Part of the service I loved so much had been sitting on the floor snuggled up with fellow readers, singing loudly and giggling at each other’s silly faces during Storytime. In the spring of 2020, the doors shut, and we did not see each other’s faces for over a year. There were colleagues I only ever met virtually, because we no longer went to meetings together. While this is not my favorite way to meet people and stay in touch, the technology made it possible for me to see what it could be like for me to be in a place with limited access to resources, such as Ajo.
In the summer of 2021, I filled in for a few days in Ajo, to support a staffing transition. It was still a very uncertain time for a lot of us working in libraries. I remember the library was closed off and furniture was stored towards the back of the building. When a position became available, I was encouraged by my mentors and friends to apply for the position of Managing Librarian at the Salazar-Ajo Library. Once I had visited and gotten a glimpse of its possibilities and talked to my colleagues there to see what the library used to be, as well as what they were hoping it could be, I took a leap of faith and applied for the position. Building trust with my staff and the community became my biggest assignment. Working with young children had prepared me to expect the unexpected, but what has continued to keep us afloat has been our ability to adapt quickly, solve problems creatively and most importantly, finding the people who are our helpers. Managing a rural library is not without its challenges. I could not have done any of it without the Salazar-Ajo Library team, as well as our colleagues in Tucson. Sometimes disaster strikes and it rains inside the library, but you just find some tarps and reach out to your helpers to move the library through another phase.
Now that we’re back on dry land, we are back to singing loudly, building LEGO creations, exploring art and creativity and learning from visiting scholars and park rangers. We welcome travelers from all over the world! We visit our community in and surrounding Ajo and on the Western Tohono O’odham Nation. We are partnering and connecting with community organizations and spreading as much library love as possible every day.
Fun fact: When I became a librarian for the Pima County Public Library, part of our training involved looking at our own library accounts. It makes me smile to this day that the date my account was created is exactly two weeks after my arrival in Tucson all those years ago.
Daniela Buchberger has worked for Pima County Public Library since May 2019. Previously, she taught preschool, served as a consultant for Make Way for Books, and was a Library Service Specialist at Pima Community College.
