MASTERMIND: Bill Harmer

Bill Harmer, the adult services librarian at the Chelsea District Library, is on a mission to change the way you think about libraries. Rule No. 1 of this transformation: Don't ask for permission.

"I'm a big advocate of coming up with ideas and following through on them and then dealing with the consequences," says Harmer, who's applied that philosophy to such antithetical library events as the Rock & Roll Library Tour and the Midwest Literary Walk.

In an economic climate where libraries are seeing more and more people and, in some cases, less and less money, Harmer says their futures depend on their ability to find partners in their communities and make memorable things happen outside their walls.

"I'm a big proponent of community partnering," he said. "It's important to connect with the movers and shakers and demonstrate that the library can be relevant in their lives."

Harmer's been part of an expansive time for Chelsea's library. He became the adult services librarian there in 2006, when the library was still housed in a small, temporary space in an old school complex. In late 2006 the library relocated to a new, state-of-the art building in the heart of Chelsea's downtown, and in 2008 Library Journal named it the Best Small Library in America – in part because of Harmer's aggressive outreach to other community groups.

"We kind of redefined the role of what a small library can do," says Harmer, who was named one of Library Journal's "Movers and Shakers" for 2009. "We create programs that aren't boring. We want to make it fun, and we want to give people an experience they'll remember. I'm interested in making a personal connection."

Working with the Chelsea Center for the Arts, Harmer recruited friend and poet M.L. Liebler to be the Chelsea District Library's first artist-in-residence, launching a program he says is the first of its kind at a public library. Liebler used his connections to bring a pack of nationally-known authors - including Beat Generation author and playwright Michael McClure and Oprah's Book Club author Bret Lott - to Chelsea as part of an April event called the Midwest Literary Walk. The library, the Chelsea Center for the Arts, two art galleries, and a coffee shop hosted authors and poets.

"They all descend on our little town, and a few hundred people show up, and they're walking the streets, wandering in and out of shops," Harmer said. "The library made that happen. I want (the library) to look good, but I want people in the community to look good, too."

Harmer, who lives in Plymouth, says he never intended to become a librarian. He worked originally for textbook publisher Thomson Gale as an editor, but hated it - and subsequently, wasn't very good at it.

But he took the company up on its offer to foot the bill for a master's degree in library science, and when he'd finished began working as a substitute librarian in Farmington. The work clicked for him immediately, and he joined the staff. A few years later Birmingham's Baldwin Public Library hired Harmer as its teen librarian. Responsible for finding ways to connect to that age group, Harmer channeled his inner teenager.

"If you think about it, when you're in school, the music that you listen to - more than anything else - defines who you are," says Harmer, a former DJ who grew up listening to the '70s rock and punk that his older brothers brought home. "Music is something I've always been passionate about; I knew I could talk to them at their level."

He convinced his favorite band, the Brian Jonestown Massacre, to play a set at the Baldwin library, then hang around and talk with the audience.

"The teens loved 'em," Harmer says. "They didn't know who they were, but they loved 'em."

The Brian Jonestown Massacre was touring with Detroit's The High Strung at the time, and after hearing over and over about "that crazy library show", someone from The High Strung contacted Harmer, and next thing you know he was booking the first Rock & Roll Library Tour. The High Strung played 35 libraries across Michigan in 2005, and the next summer the tour went national and was featured on National Public Radio's This American Life.

"There's no alcohol and no smoke, but other than that it's exactly the same as if it were in a club," he said. And it just keeps getting bigger. This year's tour includes a July stop at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"Libraries have the reputation of being a place where you're told not to have fun," Harmer says. "You're always told you have to be quiet. So I thought pairing that with a rock show, with the loudest thing known to man, would create drama."

"Why can't a library be a community center? Why can't it be a music venue?"
Or a comedy club or a career center or a media generator?

As The Rock & Roll Library Tour rolls through libraries around the country this summer, Harmer continues to push for new ways to connect the library with the community. That includes a stand-up comedy series, made possible by a collaboration with the Ann Arbor Comedy Showcase. More ambitiously, the library has begun an initiative to help patrons be proactive in Michigan's job climate. The library has partnered with Ann Arbor career transition consulting firm Synko Associates to provide career workshops and with the Michigan Small Business and Technology Center, Washtenaw Community College, the Food System Economic Partnership and the Chelsea Chamber of Commerce to offer free, one-on-one business consulting for entrepreneurs.

He's also working on a six-year oral history project – recording and editing video interviews that capture Chelsea's history through its people. There's already a segment on those who attended the area's one-room schoolhouses, and he's filming interviews with World War II veterans. Future installments will preserve the memories of the town's historic buildings, founding families, farming community, and arts community.

"What I'm hoping to do is create an oral history of Chelsea," he says. "It's the personal connection, in spades, and it breaks the mold of libraries warehousing content. We're changing that by creating content ourselves."