Did you know that Timberland Regional Library serves five counties? This week we’d like to introduce you to Monika from Pacific County! Read on to learn about a potentially haunted library 👻, awesome video game recommendations 🎮, and travel tips for tourists 🧳

“We matter because we’re one of the few places you can go to for help where you’re not expected to spend any money.”

Meet Monika!

Hello! My name is Monika and I work in one of the far corners of TRL: I’m in Ilwaco which is the furthest southwest you can get before becoming Oregon. I’ve worked at TRL for a little over 4 years now as a library assistant and before that I worked in the King County Library System as a page (someone who shelves books and pulls books for holds as their entire job) for 4 years. I did a brief stint in retail before the years in libraries, but found that I really don’t have the right personality to work retail: I’m not particularly good at pushing products. When I got accepted by the King County Library System, I found the environment and atmosphere to be much more my speed. In libraries I’m not trying to sell things to people, I’m trying to give things to people that could help make them happy without asking for anything in return and that’s much more rewarding to me.

Outside of work I have a number of different hobbies… When I’m at home I have 3 main things I’m up to… I enjoy cross-stitching on my couch while watching a movie or show (the last movie I watched was the Godfather II with my partner and his father and the last show I watched was Reacher, yes based on the Jack  Reacher books). I also really enjoy playing video games on Steam; the last game I finished was Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon and the one I’m currently devouring with all my soul is Fields of Mistria, in case you were curious. A bit of a genre change, but I enjoy both of them! The other big thing I do at home is read so many webcomics. Just all the webcomics. Historical fiction romance pulp is my jam and while I wouldn’t really call it high art, I certainly enjoy it. When I choose to go out I enjoy hiking with my partner and traveling  around places (it’s an idle goal of mine to visit all the national parks in the country) or playing Dungeons and Dragons (or other tabletop RPs) with my  friends.

Why do library workers matter?

We matter because we’re one of the few places you can go to for help where you’re not expected to spend any money. We are limited in what we can do, we’re not social workers, but our modus operandi is teaching, giving, and providing a space for anyone to be able spend time in, regardless of who you are. All of these things are becoming rarer and rarer in a society that is always on the go, increasingly digital, and that has constantly rising costs; we’re one of the few bastions you can still go to in order to speak to an actual person, one who cares, can listen, and in a lot of cases can help.

Whether that’s helping someone print something, whether that’s telling someone where to go to get a particular service, whether that’s being there for someone to talk to about their day, whether that’s helping connect people with like minded people, whether that’s being a space for people to sit quietly with their own thoughts, or whether that’s providing a myriad of resources for people to be able to learn and grow, we’re there, and we’re eager to provide. 

What do you enjoy most about your job?

As a cross-stitcher, I love a good dose of meticulous work done for the sake of a larger goal, so the day to day maintenance of shelves and collections is a genuine joy. Organizing something into a coherent and manageable form is very satisfying to me (don’t even get me started on the fact that I played a video game called Librarian: Tidy Up the Arcane Library! for well over 30 hours. The title of this game tells you everything you need to know about what you’re doing in it).

There’s one other thing I really enjoy about my job though that I touched on in my introduction: I really enjoy being able to help people. I can’t tell you how many times a patron has come in completely frazzled, losing their minds over something they’ve been struggling with that turns out to have a much simpler solution than they ever thought because we were there and had the capacity to help. Watching their distress turn to relief is always really heartening to see, and it feels good to feel like my work matters to someone. 

What makes your library unique?

First off, it’s got a whole lot of history! The Ilwaco library is a city owned building and actually used to be a part of the hospital that’s just next door, so we’ve had a number of patrons tell us about how they were born just right over in some corner of the library. I’ve also had some former staff and patrons tell me that the Ilwaco library has ghosts, but I’ve certainly never been able to corroborate such stories.

Then the second big thing that makes us unique is our location: we’re by the ocean and while Ilwaco the town isn’t a tourist hub (that’s Long Beach), we are right NEXT to a big tourist hub, so we get all sorts of people from all over coming through our doors. We are a relatively small  library, but we get a lot more foot traffic than you might expect for a small library! During the summers we get tons of tourists, and in the colder months we’re a central hub for the local community. We’re just a real hot hang out spot whether you’re sitting and chatting with friends, coming in as an out of towner to get some last minute printing done, stopping in to the library to get some work done in the corner with our wifi or attending one of our programs. 

As a local, what location or restaurant would you recommend to a visitor?

Cape Disappointment State Park is far from a disappointment (Lewis and Clark were just really tired of their journey at this point. There’s another location nearby called Dismal Nitch that was also named by them that gives even more of  a sense of just how they were feeling). The park is a common stomping ground for my partner and I and we’ll often do the walk from Waikiki Beach (pictured above) to the Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center, the Mckenzie Head trail that goes up a hill to some old bunkers, the North Head Lighthouse loop, or the walk to Beard’s Hollow (a wonderfully rocky beach).

In terms of food, there’s a cafe that’s about a 5 minute walk away from the library that I often go to on my break called the Olde Town Trading Post Cafe that has a nice atmosphere and tasty food. Or I’ll get a sub from Sips and Subs across the street if I’m feeling lunchish. Then there’s a restaurant in Long Beach called B&D’s Food Hut that my partner and I have been patronizing from when they started as a food truck on the peninsula to where they are now which is in a lovely little restaurant by the beach. 

What’s a book recommendation or current read?

Honestly? I don’t really have one. Most of what I read nowadays are webcomics or video games which aren’t really conventional reads. However I could actually recommend an entirely text-based video game that I really enjoyed. It was called Roadwarden, and in it you play as a roadwarden, a person who moves between towns in an incredibly hostile territory to deliver news/goods and just keep the road safe. You have a set amount of days to move about the map to accomplish various goals and I found it really engaging to learn about the different towns you ride to.

You’re crucial in making decisions that affect the future of the towns and I found myself really invested in how things turned out. Like I said, this isn’t a conventional game, it’s more like a choose your own adventure book, if you’ve ever done one of those. You’re faced with something, you choose how you respond from the options presented, and then flip to the page that your response dictates you go to. I loved the story of Roadwarden, and still think about it to this day. 

VOTE YES for the library this November to help keep awesome workers like Monika employed so they can keep doing what they do best: serving their communities with heart and humanity.

Visit yes4libraries.org for more information about the library levy vote.

At the Board of Trustees meeting in Amanda Park last month, our local president delivered a public comment in response to the appointment of Andrea Heisel as Interim Executive Director.

“Local 3758 continues to call for accountability in response to the Timberland Regional Library Board of Trustees’ appointment of Andrea Heisel as Interim Executive Director. Appointing Andrea, as opposed to an external candidate who does not carry the same history of complicity in the ongoing budget crisis and mistreatment of library workers, represents a choice that is dismissive of the concerns of library workers and the demands of the public.

That being said, we are here now and would like to work together and see demonstrable, active work from Andrea’s admin as well as the Board of Trustees towards repairing the harm to workers and our community members caused by a hostile workplace environment and ongoing budget crisis. The union calls for Andrea Heisel to take swift, decisive action to address the longstanding structural and cultural failings that led to the proposed massive reduction in frontline staffing, threatening the livelihoods of library workers and the critical work they do to provide services to communities across Lewis, Grays Harbor, Mason, Pacific, and Thurston Counties. 

We believe this work should involve:

• Beginning the restorative justice process by publicly taking accountability, acknowledging the harm perpetrated by this administration’s actions, and apologizing to both staff and the public.
• Regularly seeking staff feedback to meaningfully change the working environment as well as creating a safe space within those discussions for opinions that challenge the status quo.
• Adding a non-voting union member on the Board of Trustees so that our voice can be heard.
• Presenting a transparent, accurate budget forecast to the public.
• And immediately laying out a public timeline to pursue a levy lid lift.

Local 3758 library workers remain committed to advocating for safe working conditions, fair labor practices, a meaningful voice in decision-making, and a strong, financially transparent, well-funded public library system for all. 

Local 3758 would like to thank the public for their ongoing support. We strongly believe in the importance of listening to the public, particularly the library’s loudest supporters, as they will be crucial in convincing voters to pass a levy lid lift.”