Meet Meredith Crawford, Cedar Rapids librarian ‘shaping the future of libraries’

CEDAR RAPIDS — Meredith Crawford sat in her car with a bunch of books and the technology needed to read over a virtual meeting to youths in the Linn County Juvenile Justice Center while COVID-19 hampered in-person gatherings in 2021.

Carl Rush, the center’s pastor, would take a laptop and microphones into the facility. The Cedar Rapids Public Library’s teen librarian at the time, Molly Garrett, joined the conversation virtually from her house in Wilton.

It was the beginning of a program that Crawford, the Cedar Rapids Public Library’s community engagement librarian, continues today.

“Be Heard” brings diverse books, discussions and opportunities for self-expression to youth at the center. Audio recordings from some of those discussions have been listened to more than 400 times.

Her work on this program recently earned recognition from the Library Journal, which named Crawford to its annual list of “Movers & Shakers: The People Shaping the Future of Libraries.” Only 50 library workers nationwide receive the honor each year. Crawford was named to the “Advocates” category for launching that program.

“What is really wonderful about the Cedar Rapids Public Library, the board and the community is that this library has a mission and vision which creates equity and to (be) the best that we can in all that we do,” Crawford said. “ … You don't find libraries like this everywhere.”

The program exemplifies the ways Crawford works to connect the library with those who need it most. She also takes her successes in Cedar Rapids and presents at conferences like the Public Library Association’s so that other library systems can gain inspiration.

“Meredith is an incredibly thoughtful, caring person and it shows in her work. She looks for ways to serve our community and finds paths not taken,” Library Director Dara Schmidt said in a statement. “Her passion for libraries and patrons in need have helped the Cedar Rapids Public Library expand our reach, and I am grateful to her for it. We are so proud she has chosen to work for CRPL.”

Kevin Delecki, the library’s programming manager, said Crawford isn’t interested in receiving any attention for her contributions and often shifts focus to the library’s overall work, which is why she’s deserving of recognition on a national scale. She’s passionate and “relentlessly energetic — always ready to go do the next thing,” he said.

“She’s becoming one of those national leaders in really seeing these kids and their futures in a genuine way and working to ensure that they get what they need before they have to find an alternative path for it,” Delecki said.

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Career began in the archives

Initially, Crawford wanted to work in libraries as an archivist after she took a University of Iowa American literature course, where she visited the University Archives and carefully held old books with white gloves. The more she learned, she realized there were so many ways of not just capturing stories, but making sure that voices were heard through oral histories, photographic evidence and personal papers.

She later earned a master's degree in library and information science with an emphasis in archives and records management, and worked for the National Park Service, motivated by a belief that people should “get to speak their own history and not let other people write their history.”

Working as a children's and outreach librarian in Lafayette, La., changed her life. She’d see families return for her baby-, toddler- and school-age story time sessions, and came to realize the importance of stories unfolding in “real time” — not just those that happened years ago in a distant historical period.

Young mothers, grandmothers or other caregivers found a shared space despite coming from different backgrounds. They wouldn’t always see eye to eye, but there, Crawford said, everyone was equal and had fun and supported one another — like a support group.

“You could see people learning and sharing together and growing,” Crawford said. “Literally these kids grow right before your eyes. You spent five years there, and sometimes these kids are born and then off to school in that time. And that was really powerful.”

It was there she met her mentor, Amy Wander, who now works for the New Orleans Public Library’s strategic programming team. Wander was passionate about equity and access and taking library services out of the library and into the community, showing Crawford “how public librarianship can be an act of social justice.”

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Library fosters connections ‘like a root system’

A Mount Vernon native, Crawford longed to be closer to her family and give her kids access to a farm and all that Iowa offers. That’s how she ended up at the Cedar Rapids Public Library more than five years ago, starting as a programming librarian facilitating community-facing programs on the library’s public calendar.

In her current role as the community engagement librarian, she finds ways to connect community partners to the library and to each other.

With Crawford and the library team, staff do a pop-up library program once a week at the Union at Wiley apartment complex, the Annex Group’s 180-unit, $29.4 million affordable housing development at 4227 21st Ave. SW in Cedar Rapids. Civic engagement groups also are working with the library on voter literacy initiatives at the Catherine McAuley Center.

Whether it’s working with the juvenile detention center or Willis Dady Homeless Services’ overflow shelter, Crawford’s gift is how she sees the potential in people beyond their circumstances, Delecki said.

“She doesn’t see these teens she meets with every week as teens in the system or incarcerated,” Delecki said. “She sees them as what they can be with people who care about them. … She treats them like people who have a future and have potential. That’s what’s so transformational.”

Delecki said Crawford’s work with more marginalized communities has helped the library “have some hard conversations about are we serving the right people in the right ways? Is what we’re doing genuinely accessible to all of the members of our community?”

“It’s connected the library to parts of the community that we’ve never been able to connect with,” Delecki said.

Being in the community presents more opportunities to connect the library to people — artists who use the library’s gallery spaces, nonprofits and social service organizations who may use free meeting rooms, Crawford said.

“I feel like it’s a little bit of a spiderweb,” Crawford said. “It's like a root system that grows out. You don't see it on top of the ground, but it starts to spread the longer you're able to be in a community.”

She thinks about the library that way, too. She meets new people, learns more about the community and services that organizations offer and is rewarded with seeing people use the library.

“What you offer as a library should be a reflection of your community,” Crawford said. “And you can't talk to every individual, but when you get feedback that the services are helpful in any way, it makes you want to do better, more. ‘What's next?’ is the question that it leaves me with — what's next? Who else? Why not?”

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