Downey's Jessica Castelo accepts job with Library of Congress
Jessica Castelo is heading to Washington, D.C. to work for the Library of Congress. (Photo by Alex Dominguez)
DOWNEY — First-generation college graduate Jessica Castelo is headed to the nation’s capital to take a position working at the Library of Congress.
After graduating from Warren High School in 2016, Castelo, 24, moved to Camarillo to pursue her bachelor’s degree in history from California State University, Channel Islands.
It was there where she found her love for libraries.
“Being a history student, there’s a lot of research involved, so I utilized libraries quite a bit,” said Castelo. “If it wasn’t for the librarians there showing me the ropes, I wouldn’t really know what I was doing in terms of what a database is, how to research properly.
“My whole college career I was set on teaching, but my very last class – my capstone class that I needed to graduate – we had a librarian come, and he had a bachelor’s degree in history as well. He told us, "Hey, just in case you don’t know what you’re going to do with your life, I also majored in history, and I went to library school, and I love my job.”
Upon looking into it, Castelo says she “absolutely fell in love with what libraries are about.”
“It was more my forte because I went into teaching because it was just something that was like, what else do you do with a history degree,” said Castelo. “I looked into it; I looked into USC’s [library] program, and I ultimately decided to go there.”
Castelo earned her masters from USC, spending four months at the Library of Congress as part of an internship.
Along with her internship experience, Castelo has volunteered as a board member with the Friends of the Downey Library.
Now working in an official capacity, Castello will be a part of a museum technician out of the visitor engagement office, working to get guests through the doors and engaged with all the library has to offer.
“With the Library of Congress, I feel like there’s two different parts of it. There’s the research library, where you think of the biggest collection of books in the world; there’s that part,” said Castelo. “But then there’s also the more museum part. That’s why my title is ‘museum technician’…I’ve come to find out it’s a brand-new position; they just created it.”
She continued:
“This position is more like that bridge of ‘how do we get regular folks that don’t know that anybody in the world can have a Library of Congress reader card.’ No matter if you have a photo ID, you can have one. You don’t have to be a United States resident, so it’s really cool. That’s a need that I identified in my internship and I’m really happy they created this position, and I can be that pioneer to kind of start that.”
If she can be that bridge for even just one person, Castelo would call it a success.
“When I was there, kind of seeing people’s faces light up when they realized that you don’t have to be this big-shot scholar with a PHD to utilize anything in the Library of Congress, you can just be a regular person, seeing that excitement in people was the most rewarding part,” said Castelo. “If I can even just get one more person, hopefully a local person, to just start coming into the library and utilizing its resources, that would make it worth it to me.
“This position feels like it is more of a bridge, and if I can just be that person and just get people in our doors and excited about how amazing libraries are – especially the Library of Congress and how accessible it is, especially now – that would make it so worth it.”