By Jaidyn Steinbrecher
You’re on your daily walk to work in Center City Philadelphia. It’s a warm, sunny afternoon, and South Broad Street is bustling with tourists and other everyday folk also on their way to work. But there’s another group that floods the street, holding up painted signs and chanting out mottos. There are others who climb and chalk faces and slogans on the grand white pillars of Dorrance Hamilton Hall while others sing out their frustrations. Through the noise you hear one song stand out “Thank You” by Sly & The Family Stone and that’s when you see a tall woman with a neatly done dirty-blonde bun begin to cry. She is a librarian at the University of Arts, which will close at the end of that very week.
Jenny Roberts-Reilley is a bright, smiley woman who is always dressed in vivid colors and exciting patterns. She’s sitting in her office at the end of the librarian row in the Blough-Weis Library, which is equally as bold with color. The office is warm and welcoming, made all the better by her sweet smile. She begins her story with a soft-spoken smooth voice that sounds like it’s about to share a fairytale.
Roberts-Reilley has worked in libraries all around Philadelphia and its suburbs since she began reshelving books at Albright College, where she originally started her higher education journey. However, she struggled to find a community there and soon transferred to Lafayette College where she completed two programs: Religious Studies and Anthropology & Sociology. At Lafayette she, too, worked in the library as a desk worker.
After graduating, she continued the librarian lifestyle working part time at three different libraries in the suburbs of Philadelphia. She started working part time at three different libraries: Phoenixville Public Library, Chester Springs Public Library, and Spring City Public Library.
“I loved working with the kids at [Phoenixville],” said Roberts-Reilley, “It taught me what it really means to be a librarian”
Roberts-Reilley had such a connection with the children, but she also felt a push toward higher education, partly due to her family all being educators of one form or another. She pursued the master’s program in Library Sciences at Drexel University where she once again worked at the school’s academic library, this time as a reference assistant. She worked and studied at Drexel for three and a half years and fell in love with the environment and staff of the library. One of those staff members was the archivist, a young Rob Sieczkiewicz.
“Jenny has such an energy and enthusiasm,” said Sieczkiewicz. “I think in general, she just brings such a passion and fun attitude to the job.”
Sieczkiewicz would later partly influence her decision to come to Susquehanna University, but right now it’s only 2008 and Roberts-Reilley has just graduated from Drexel.
Afterward, she began working at the Free Library of Springfield Township, specifically with the children, where she helped develop several programs and became very involved with the community. She became very close with the children and had an even stronger pull towards education, and soon she would go to Arcadia University to get officially certified in education.
Roberts-Reilley jumped right into education, working the Lower School Library and Technology Program at the Westtown School Library. Roberts-Reilley adored the tight knit Quaker community and felt extremely loved and respected by the students and staff.
“They called me the Teacher Jenny or Library Tech Teacher,” Roberts-Reilley laughs. “I would have never left [Westtown] if I wasn’t recruited back to Springfield.”
At first, she struggled replacing the well-beloved librarian who had just retired from Free Library of Springfield Township; however she felt immediately welcomed back to the community as she began interacting with her old students that she read to and taught in years prior.
Roberts-Reilley worked there for eight years, right up into and for two years during the COVID-19 pandemic. At this point is when she started to notice an uptick in the banning of books—or book challenges—in the local area.
“What’s striking is that I had been teaching lessons about book bans for years,” she began. “It was always something that didn’t affect us you know…it was looking at the past, it was Fahrenheit 451 and The Book Thief. It wasn’t reality.”
But then it was. Districts in the suburbs of Philadelphia like Bucks County School District made national headlines in 2022 when several books were challenged.
“I just didn’t think that, in my lifetime, something like this would happen,” she said, pushing up her glasses and having a sip of water from her signature pink and orange water bottle. “We just have to defend [the books] and be cognizant of censorship.”
This increased fear of book challenges and the “fear of losing the power to select them,” as Roberts-Reilley put it, is what drove her back to higher education and the more secured academic libraries.
In 2022, Roberts-Reilley began working at Philadelphia’s University of the Arts.
The University of the Arts traced its origins to several 19th-century schools dedicated to art, design, and music. Its earliest roots included the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art, founded in 1876, and the Philadelphia Musical Academy, founded in 1870. The art school became the Philadelphia College of Art in 1964, while several music and dance institutions merged to form the Philadelphia College of the Performing Arts in the 1970s. In 1985, the two colleges combined to create the Philadelphia Colleges of the Arts, which gained university status in 1987 and was renamed the University of the Arts. Located on South Broad Street, the University of the Arts became a major center for visual and performing arts education.
“UArts was a special place,” says Roberts-Reilley. “I’ve never worked at a place filled with so many opportunities to celebrate student art.”
The University of the Arts library had few books but held a modest mid-century vibe. It was much smaller than the Blough-Weis Library, only making up the crammed first floor of Anderson Hall, as well as the basement which the staff of few librarians and five student workers called “The Vault,” because of its history as a former bank vault. That is where they held a sort of haunted house.
“It was only the first year, but people loved it so much that they acted like it had been around for years,” said Roberts-Reilley with a delighted voice. This instant tradition caught wind for a second year, and the students had already begun speculating what the theme would be for the third year—which would have been fallout, says Roberts-Reilley—but sadly the school closed before summer even began.
However, by the 2010s and early 2020s, the University of the Arts faced growing financial and enrollment challenges. The school struggled with declining student numbers, rising operational costs, and significant debt. Despite fundraising campaigns and efforts to modernize, the university’s finances became unsustainable. On Friday, May 31, 2024, the University of the Arts abruptly announced it would close permanently on the following Friday, June 7.
A sigh escapes Roberts-Reilley’s lips, “it was a normal [Friday], it was almost summer break, and we just ordered books to start a new leisure section.”
Roberts-Reilley didn’t find out from the Philadelphia Inquirer or the Philadelphia Tribune, instead she was at home watching My Lottery Dream Home when she got a text from her boss saying that the reports were true and the University of the Arts—with all of its near 150-year history—would close in exactly one week.
“I just looked over to my husband,” Roberts-Reilley said with a breaking voice, “and I just said ‘I’m sorry. I just lost my job.’” She felt guilty for taking the risk of working outside of public education.
“I just spent the weekend calling my friends…we were all just mourning and grieving and trying to process it all,” she said, taking steady breaths between sentences. “That last week we kind of just held each other.”
The five desk workers were all juniors with only one more year to go. Most of them, as well as one of the other librarians, transferred over to Moore College of the Arts. Roberts-Reilley still talks to all her fellow librarians who also watched and waited to hear something from the President, but they never got satisfaction.
Roberts-Reilley spoke highly of the President of the University of the Arts—who was just getting started in the position—yet the supposed Town Hall was canceled, and a statement was never made. Roberts-Reilley continued, “I don’t think we ever saw her when it all went down.”
Instead, the pure white pillars of Dorrance Hamilton Hall were chalked over with the face of the president. “I mean they were artists, they were drawing and having a concert on the steps…but what really got me was this one funk song by Sly & The Family Stone, it was something like ‘thank you for letting me be myself’” she sung along. “And in between songs [the students] were just crying out about how much the university meant to them and how they were able to find a community at UArts. And that’s when I really started to cry. It just broke me.”
“We all mobilized,” Roberts-Reilley continued, “and it was empowering, but it was a still just a gesture. There was nothing that could really be done.”
But eventually there was hope. “I started to think about what the next big thing could be. I could be a different type of librarian or a beach librarian,” Roberts-Reilley smiled with a laugh. She’ll later explain her love for the beach and her all time biggest dream of becoming what she calls a “beach librarian.”
“I used to go to Sea Isle Beach in New Jersey and they had this guy called the Fudgy Wudgy Man who just went around the beach selling delicious fudge pops, but I want to do the library version of that, like handing out books to people,” she said.
When Roberts-Reilley originally saw the listing at Susquehanna University in a town over two hours away from Philadelphia, as well as one that focused more on faculty connections more so than students, she wasn’t so sure.
“I knew Jenny would be perfect for the job,” said Sieczkiewicz. “And she really brought such an enthusiasm to the whole job with promoting faculty scholarship and getting faculty involved in open textbooks. Jenny is very passionate about reducing the cost burden for textbooks and making education more equitable for students.”
“Rob played a big factor in my application to Susquehanna,” Roberts-Reilley continued, “but when I drove up to the campus to interview in the summer, it was just so stunning. I mean, I was just jaw dropped at it. I knew once I stepped onto the campus that I had to stay.”
“Jenny fit right in.” Sieczkiewicz said. “It’s really fun to work with someone who is so full of joy and loves to dance…I like being around unconventional people, and she is unconventional in a way that’s different from the rest of us. She brings such a unique, free spirit here to what I think is already a batch of free spirits. We’re silly and we love to laugh, and Jenny fits right into that mold.”
“I immediately thought she was super friendly and bubbly, but I also recognized her deep passion for libraries,” said Amanda Boyer, the Student Success Librarian at Blough-Weis Library, when first interviewing her. “A fond memory I have of Jenny is from our first Chill Out event together. I had forgotten to order a balloon animal kit, and she was willing to drive an hour away to purchase a kit for us. She had only been here about a month and a half at the time, and I was amazed by her dedication to ensuring our event went well and students had a good time!”
“I felt so welcomed immediately,” continued Roberts-Reilley. “I loved the fact that there were so many student workers and that they were all so involved.”
“Immediately she was kind and welcoming and very knowledgeable. She was so ready to immerse herself in our campus culture and constantly attended events and sought connections with students,” said Lexie Kauffman, a senior student manager at the library. “She has introduced a new level of friendliness and everyday connection with the student body.”
“The library has always been a welcoming place, but with Jenny that has only become more true. With her, the library is bursting with personality and warmth,” said Jenn Martin, another senior student worker. “The particular memory that I would like to share is when she collaborated with SLAC to teach students how to make a cross-stitch bookmark. She demonstrated how to complete the craft and also provided one on one support when a student was unsure on what to do.”
Roberts-Reilley’s smile is brighter than ever as she recounts her many memories of the library, even with her only having been here for over a year. Yet even in her short time, it seems she has made a deep impact on the Susquehanna community.
Throughout our interview, whenever someone walked by the large glass doors to the library offices, she would wave and smile. “To be honest, I spend most of every day talking with people. I spend so much time just talking with students and staff and really anyone. Everyone here has been so kind and welcoming, and I couldn’t have asked for better.”