STAFF SPOTLIGHT: Marli, Forest Avenue Library manager

Marli Jefferson grew up playing in Evelyn K. Davis Park in the summer and cooling off in the Forest Avenue Library. Now, she is taking on the role of managing the library in a community where she spent a lot of her formative years as a child. 

"The aspect of getting kids excited about reading is one thing," she says. "Then also seeing what we can do to make even small changes so that the Forest Avenue Library is an inviting space where kids and teens want to hang out after school." 

She sees the impact that the library and her staff can have on the kids who spend their free time here, "It's a very instrumental age to where they can go one way or the other, and I want to be a part of the reason that they go the right way." 

The Forest Avenue Library is more than a home for the books that people can check out. "I want the library to be a focal point in the community... I want people to know the staff here and what we do for them day in and day out, and how we can help them and be there for them as a neighbor," Marli says. 

For her, the Forest Avenue Library is an institution, and she is excited to be a part of the next chapter, "I think this library is doing, and will do, great things in the community. The more we make ourselves known and build those connections and relationships, the more that we will be able to succeed," she says. 

Marli grew up as an avid reader, bingeing books and reading everything she could get her hands on. Today, she finds joy in passing her love of reading to her ten-year-old son. When he was younger, it was finding books to read to him. "I was reading to him all the time,” she says, “and now he reads to me." 

Some of her favorite genres to read are romance, mysteries, adult and teen fiction. She has also started getting into reading science fiction. A book she recently read and loved in one day was Hold You Down by Tracy Brown. It is sad, so make sure to have some tissues on hand, but you won’t regret picking it up. As she is getting into science fiction, Marli read and loved The Blood Trials and The Blood Gift a science fiction duology by N.E. Davenport where a a young Black woman must survive deadly trials in a racist and misogynistic society to become an elite warrior. 

Up next, she is looking forward to reading Ours by Phillip B. Williams and Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.  

When Marli isn’t working or reading, she enjoys attending her son’s sporting events, spending time with family and friends, traveling, and playing with her dog. 

Stop by the Forest Avenue Library to meet Marli and welcome her to the neighborhood.