This 5 Questions features a special guest from outside ZSR Library! If you would like to choose 5 Questions yourself, feel free to choose 5 from this form.

Alicia Lemar, Education Library & Outreach Coordinator

Tell us about what you do at WFU?

I am the librarian in the Department of Education, housed in Tribble Hall. Right now, I am spending a lot of time on collection development and organization.

What is a typical day in your work life?

My days typically involve reading the shelves and looking for titles that don’t belong in the collection (i.e. are adult titles) and making sure the titles are organized by age group. When I’m not doing that, I am looking up book lists for award winners and special items, such as Battle of the Books titles, to add to our collection.

What is your favorite book/podcast/movie?

My favorite adult book is the Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. My favorite young adult/middle grade book is The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman. I love the main character, Lyra, so much that I named my dog after her!

What is your favorite project you have worked on in your career?

Before I moved back to Winston-Salem, I was in charge of purchasing the books for the 2018 ALSC National Institute. Through this project I was able to meet some great children’s literature authors, most notably the amazing Grace Lin!

What is your favorite library story? (or memorable experience?)

When I was just starting out in children’s librarianship, I had a young boy, maybe 7 years old, start asking me about crawdads. He wanted to know how to catch a crawdad, and as we were looking up information, it turns out what he really wanted to know is if a cooked hot dog would be too hot for the crab and burn its claw!