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Meet Brendan Lax: Librarian

Post Date:10/14/2022

Brendan Lax is the driving force behind the Hillsboro Public Library's Library of Things. We asked Brendan to share what makes his work so meaningful and impactful.

Brendan, can you tell us about yourself?

I was born in Portland (Maine) and grew up in Portland (Oregon), where I currently live with my wife, our three kids, our dog, and a guinea pig.

I’ve been a librarian at the Hillsboro Public Library for almost 13 years, and while I’ve been in several roles during that time, I currently have the best job in the world, selecting and managing the board games, video games, graphic novels, AV, and Library of Things collections.

What is it like to spend a day in your job?

Every day is different, but a good amount of my time each day is spent working with my collection areas, reading reviews, purchasing new materials, and finding new ways to innovate and expand our collections.

Our Library of Things collection includes over 700 board games and more than 650 non-traditional library items, from stand mixers and banjos to digital microscopes and pressure washers. With so many Things, it’s almost a full-time job just keeping everything in good working order and available for checkout. One day I can be found using a lint roller to clean pet hair off the 10’x10’ green screen cloth, and the next day I’m scrubbing clean the commercial popcorn popper.

I have worked a long time with our social media team at the library, finding ways to engage our community online and highlight all that we have available. One way I do this is by creating silly Library of Things videos for our YouTube channel and producing the library’s podcast I Blame My Shelf. You can also find me working out on the floor or at the reference desk for at least a few hours each day. These are some of the best times of my day, as I get to work directly with our patrons, helping them to find what they need or discover something they didn’t even know existed.

What is the most rewarding part of your job?

A big part of my job is striving to make the library more accessible to everyone in our community by helping people learn about what the library is all about and what we have to offer. It’s really important to me and my coworkers to create a safe and inviting space for everyone in our community to come and visit and spend time in. Some of the most rewarding moments are when you someone comes in with a need and you are able to go above and beyond their expectations to help.

There is nothing better than helping a kid discover a new favorite book series, knowing all the work that goes into selecting and processing those materials and seeing them end up in a grateful patron’s hands. I know first-hand that people, especially children, can grow in confidence and empathy by reading great books, and it’s nice to be a part of that experience.

Share your personal Hillsboro favorites with us.

With three young kids, I often find myself at public parks, and Hillsboro has some of the best parks I’ve been to. Current favorites include Tamarack Park, with its awesome skate park for beginners and its bocce court (we checkout bocce ball sets in the Library of Things!), and the disc golf course at Orchard Park (we checkout disc golf sets too!). My favorite place in the world is the Oregon Coast, as it has been since I was a little kid, and any chance we get, the family and I are packed up into the car and heading out on HWY 26.

Tell us something people wouldn’t guess about you?

Before moving to Seattle for graduate school, I spent over a year as a cook and deckhand on ocean-going tugboats, heading from Anchorage to Honolulu to San Diego and everywhere in between. On a three-week voyage to Hawaii, there is little to look forward to each day other than the food, so it was a lot of pressure to turn out some good tasting food for three meals a day. Thankfully, when seas got rough the crew tended to not really want to eat as much.

My most memorable trip was a three-month voyage from Coos Bay to Anchorage and back, missing Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s and my birthday, but also getting to sail alongside orca pods heading up the Inside Passage, using a bat to whack ice off of lines at 3am as we navigate thick ice sheets heading into port, and riding out hurricane force weather on the Gulf by hiding behind Montague Island for a week. It was an unforgettable time in my life.

The Library of Things, which allows patrons to checkout items with their library card, was one of the first of its kind in the country. Check out this interview Brendan did with OPB on how The Library of Things came to be and how it benefits community members.