“Don’t get your PhD. You should get a master’s degree in Library Science.”
That might sound like insane advice, but for Erica Watson, Contra Costa’s Electronic Resources Librarian, taking that advice led her to a job she loves. Coming from Long Beach and having worked at the school for the last seven years, Watson never has to tell you that listening was the right decision — her stories say that for her.
Take for example what she was doing during the pandemic. One of her most memorable and inspiring moments put her on the front lines of the battle for remote learning.
Dressed in a shield mask and gloves, she and two other people took on the thankless and seemingly never-ending task of putting laptops into giant ziploc bags to make sure everyone had access to a computer when remote learning was the only option.
“And it was like me, a dean and our library technician at the time, and then just students like coming in one by one,” Watson said. “It was wild, like there was nobody else here.”
That memory speaks to something important about Watson herself.
“It was a very strange time anyway, but doing that was one memory that also inspired me to keep this technology program going, because I saw how grateful folks were for having one — having access to a computer,” Watson said.
Originally, Watson wanted to be a veterinary technician, and worked in the veterinarian world for 15 years in various positions — but she found herself worn down by the less pleasant aspects of the job. She describes that experience as, while not being the right one for her, something that gave her invaluable skills in her day-to-day life now.
“I’m pretty quick on my feet, because again, when a living being stops breathing, you have to fix it, and so the bustle of like, how the library can be really busy I find really exhilarating, because it’s kind of like being, you know — except nothing’s going to hopefully die, right?”
Watson went back to the City College of San Francisco, originally in the hopes of becoming a music teacher. She’d made steady progress within the program, eventually helping her graduate advisor run the research methods class for music majors. She had a knack for it — so much so that the very same graduate advisor told her not to pursue a PhD.
Unconventional advice? Sure, but being able to help people and see the results of it so quickly makes everything worth it to Watson. She describes her daily duties as ranging from pushing in chairs, maintaining the 24/7 chat service, checking to see if any databases are down and if so, which ones, making sure students are getting the resources available to them via the library. For example, educational streaming services or access to newspaper articles.
Remembering her days as a veterinary technician, Watson said her job is fulfilling.
“I mean, it’s coming from a service industry where things wanted to bite me, or didn’t want me to do whatever I was doing to them, because it was animals and they were sick, going into something like helpful customer service-ish,” Watson said. “But also, the people I’m helping have a goal, right?”
When asked what she loved about working at Contra Costa, Watson had plenty of different answers. One of them was the freedom and flexibility to try new things. An example of that was the library’s short lived but still thoughtful AI exhibit. “There’s a lot of freedom to try things and there’s a lot of trust too, that whatever we’re doing is always student centered and student first.”
Another thing Watson talked about was being part of a team of people she could fully trust.
“Well, there are three full timers, and so that gives us and our team is small and our circulation staff is basically one and a half,” she explained. “So you know, we have to rely on each other because our team is so small.”
The most important reason, however, can be summed up in four words, Watson said.
“The students, they’re fantastic.”
