If there’s anything Corey Miller is looking forward to, it’s the return June 1 of Storytime at the Halls branch of the Knox County Public Library.
“We’re ready for things to, hopefully, get more back to normal,” he said.
Miller became the branch manager in November 2019, on the cusp of the Covid-19 pandemic. Most regular library programming came to a screeching halt, but things have been returning to schedules, branch by branch, across the system.
“We were taking the necessary precautions to be responsible,” he said. “Hopefully, numbers continue to fall, and we can stay on track with more programming.”
Miller wasn’t aiming to become a librarian when he graduated from Gibbs High School in 2007.
“Originally, I had planned to be a history teacher,” he said. But fate and some familial and friendly urging nudged him to where he is today.
“I was raised on the Dewey Decimal System,” Miller said, explaining that his mother, Jane Miller, often volunteered in the library where he attended at Gibbs Elementary, and later became the assistant librarian at Holston Middle, which he also attended.
“I often helped her, and teachers would send me to fetch stuff because I knew my way around,” he said. “I didn’t know it then, but I was being trained into my future career later in life.”
Miller earned his bachelor’s in history at UT, but it was his mother who suggested he follow up with his master’s in library sciences. Upon graduating, he was focused in the area of archives and records management. But it wasn’t quite the fit he was looking for. A good friend suggested he use his gift of gab and look toward working in a library.
“I will talk your ear off. I am a people person. My friend Danny Hussey told me, look, you’re just friendly, go work where you can use your personality,” he said. “It’s all his fault I found my dream job.”
He added that his brother, Jonathan, loves to aggravate him about his love of reading and said “leave it to you to go find a place full of books and work there.” Miller returns the favor by telling his brother, who listens to audio books, “that’s STILL reading.”
Miller has been with public library system for five years. He started at the Cedar Bluff branch, then moved to Karns and eventually to Halls, where he started as a branch assistant.
“I just worked my way up,” he said. Landing in the Halls location couldn’t be more perfect for him since he grew up in Gibbs and was always “Halls adjacent” in addition to having family scattered across Halls, Gibbs and Corryton.
An avid reader, Miller said that his personal taste leans toward fantasy, science fiction and history, but that he always has 20 to 30 books he’s making his way through.
“We’re here to help people, so I need to stay on top of what’s out there. I need to be able to make good recommendations,” he said, adding that includes reading picture books, early chapter books and literature aimed at middle schoolers as well as young adult fiction. He’s also pumped about the county’s Read City USA initiative, and said the tally is already past 300,000 hours.
“We want to encourage everyone to read,” Miller said. “A library is more than just a place full of books. It’s about community.”
To learn more about activities at the Halls library go here.
Beth Kinnane is the community news editor for KnoxTNToday.com.