Mychal the Librarian Is a UMass Global Guest Lecturer

Source: The photo used in this content was obtained from the Instagram account @mychal3ts.

IRVINE, Calif. (February 21, 2024) — In the library world, short of authors such as J.K. Rowling or James Patterson or book series like Lord of the Rings or Beatrix Potter, there aren’t a slew of celebrities. Marion the Librarian, the love interest in the famous musical The Music Man, would probably be the only librarian a person could name.

But Mychal Threets is changing that. This supervising librarian of the Solano County Library has nearly 700,000 followers on both Instagram and TikTok, where his videos talk about the pleasures and importance of local libraries. Known as “Mychal the Librarian” in social media, Threets was recently a guest lecturer/interviewee for the UMass Global English 450 class with Tami Lincoln, Ed.D., Associate Professor of Liberal Studies in the UMass Global School of Arts & Sciences.

Threets was the perfect subject for Lincoln’s course, Literature of Children and Young Adults, as children’s books have been a central part of Threets’ life starting even before he had his first library card at the age of 5. Plus, in his career path, Threets was a children’s librarian for three years. Today, many of his social media posts center on children’s and young adult books.

With his social media outreach, Threets seeks to share his love of the library with everyone. And word is getting out. He has been featured on Good Morning America and in the Huffington Post. He has racked up over 13 million likes on TikTok. He recently received an American Library Association “I Love My Librarian” Award. And now, he’s part of a UMass Global English course!

Threets, who has a BA in Communications with a technology concentration and a Master of Arts in Library & Information Science, started at the bottom of the library career path as a library aide, where the role basically is to reshelve books. From there he became a library assistant, children’s librarian, marketing librarian, and now, in January of 2024, supervising librarian at Solano County Library, the same library he frequented four to five times every week during his youth.

Lincoln’s interview with Mychal the Librarian is intended to help fuel teachers who will be teaching reading to their students. The interview covers Threets’ career path, children’s literature, literacy, the current disturbing trends in book bans, and other topics. A recording of the 90-minute interview can be found here.