CURRENT POSITION Government Relations Specialist, Ramapo Catskill Library System, Middletown, NY DEGREE MLIS, Wayne State University, 2010 FAST FACT Park learned her customer service skills by working at the Emporium, the second-largest store in Disney World. FOLLOW linkedin.com/in/jennifer-park-47819325; bit.ly/NJrestrictions; bit.ly/BabyBundleBags Photo by Joanna Goldfarb

Good Relations

Jen Park knew the approach libraries usually took toward political advocacy. “We’d go up to the capitol once or twice a year,” she says. “I always felt like we were leaving something out.” 

When the Ramapo Catskill Library System planned to add a government relations position, Park was immediately interested. Before the position was approved, she completed an internship with New York State Assemblyman Brian Miller and learned how government officials receive advocates and process information. During the course of the internship, she proposed being in the assemblyman’s office twice a week during the legislative session and was accepted.

This allowed her to pursue projects like Baby Bundles, which provide new parents with information about maternal and early childhood literacy. The initiative proved highly popular, and Park made extensive new connections. 

Those connections and skills proved valuable when Park’s son was told he would no longer be able to check books out of his school library every week—a new policy limited checkouts to once every two weeks. Park researched and found school librarians hadn’t been part of that decision. A resident of New Jersey who works in New York, she organized with the NJ Association of School Librarians, ALA, and concerned parents. The press picked up the story, and the school library reversed course. 

She then trained library staff, administration, and trustees about advocacy and created programs explaining how advocacy works and about working with New York government. 

The combination of libraries and government is logical to Park. “When I’m in these trainings, I say, ‘You know which groups are really for everyone, every single person, and everyone has access to them? The government and libraries.’”