Getting To Know
Our Library Director
Tonya Olson-Ferrell, a native of west-central Minnesota, has been
the director of the Yankton Community Library for the last year.
During this time the library has continued to offer many free programs
for all ages, and has made efforts to enhance service to the community
by doing away with most fines and offering homework help after
school. Given all that, it seemed appropriate to get to know our
library’s director a little better.
She came to South Dakota enrolling at Augustana University in
Sioux Falls, “I was all set on Gustavus, which is in Minnesota, a very
similar school, and then I got, as part of my scholarship to Augie, a
trip to India. So that really solidified it for me and that was a great
experience.”
As far as developing an interest in librarianship, that didn’t begin
until her junior year at Augie, “I did a semester in Minneapolis
through the HECUA Program (Higher Education Consortium for
Urban Affairs). They do some study-abroad programs and they do
some in-country programs … around a certain topic. Mine was
looking at social justice through the lens of the Twin Cities.”
Though there was never any single formative experience in the area
of social justice for Olson-Ferrell, she says she’s always been drawn
to such issues. As a youth, she went on a couple of mission trips to
Jamaica, and then to India through Augustana, all in the span of about
three years. Now, she believes that first-hand exposure to the poverty
in those countries started her thinking about social justice here in her
own country and in her education. “My grandfather was a principal
in Minnesota his whole career and he always talked about, ‘There’s
a lot of poverty here too.’ And ‘What can we do to help kids here?’
Not that it’s not great to help people in other countries, but there are
things to look at in our own country.” Topics like these, she believes,
discussed around the family dinner table while she and her sister were
growing up, probably contributed to Olson-Ferrell’s personal desire to
participate in the HECUA program.
Through the program she got an internship with the City of St. Paul
Dept. of Parks and Recreation. During that internship her boss sat her
down one day and said: What do you want to do with your life? She
replied: I have no idea! “I was freaking out about it. It was the typical
college student getting-ready-to-be-a-senior thing. She asked me
what I was interested in, and I honestly don’t even remember what I
told her…, but she said, ‘I think you should look at being a librarian.
Librarians are some of the most radical people I know.’ And that
floored me. I had never heard anything like that. Our library growing
up was pretty strict and what you think of stereotypically, and very
small. So I thought, I will have to look into that,’ and just sort of filed it
away.”
Senior year she got in touch with Augustana’s Head Librarian
Ronelle Thompson. She explained her interest and asked to shadow
one of the library’s employees. Thompson replied, “We can do that, but
if you’re really interested, you should work in a library. We can’t show
you everything and you can’t get a really good glimpse into this — and
if you want to do this — unless you’re doing it every day.” Adding,
“And hey, by the way, I have a job opening.”
Olson-Ferrell applied, but didn’t get the job. What she did get
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