A Bay Area Librarian Is Using Vintage Vinyl to Show Tweens Where Music Comes From

“ISO: vinyl records!” 

So began a Facebook post from a middle school librarian in a free stuff group that COYOTE’s Emma Silvers shared in our collective Slack. The post continues, “I’ve recently acquired a record player and am creating a ‘listening station’ in my library… The problem is: I don’t have any records!”

“Maybe a bunch of 12-year-olds getting into obscure vinyl because of their cool-ass school librarian is the feel-good story I need right now,” Emma wrote. 

As an elder Millennial 🧓🏻 who still remembers calling school friends on a landline, waiting for that 56k modem buzz to finish before I could spend a few hours downloading one mp3 file, and sticking a VHS tape into a rewinding machine after the movie ended, something about a vinyl record player making its way into the hands of iPad kids feels very validating. Regardless of whether or not you’re a parent yourself, I think it’s normal to worry about how tech has ruined the attention spans and lives of the young people we interact with. So the thought of middle schoolers in San Francisco getting a chance to mess around with an analog music player in their library is very comforting to me.

That librarian, Gina Cargas, works for SFUSD, and she happened to be a friend of a friend of mine, so I reached out to get more details. Read on to learn more about what she’s doing, why it matters, and how school libraries are getting really fucking cool.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed.

Soleil: What kind of response did you get when you put the word out that you were on the hunt for vinyl? 

Gina: I got a really big response! I had two people at work who suddenly came up to me and were like, are you looking for records? People have been really sweet. In total, I got 40 offers from Facebook. For now — not to sound like a San Francisco-style snob or anything — I’m just responding to people who live close to me for convenience because I live near Glen Park. 

What kind of music are you hoping to collect?

I'm very open to any genres for the kids to explore. I don't have a goal for what music I want to have here, though from my point of view, of course I want them to listen to stuff I like — let's get some Prince! But there's just a range of what they're interested in. Some of them asked me about Metallica this week. Then there are of course the kids whose parents listen to a lot of ‘90s hip-hop.

For now, I want to start with fewer than 50 records. Ideally, even less than that, to be honest; then I can see how it goes. I want to see what the kids gravitate towards. For now, I'll keep a lot of the records in the back while students figure out how to use the record player and slowly introduce more.

What are kids at your school listening to these days?

K-pop! But it’s such a big range: This school has 1,000 students. There are a lot of kids listening to K-pop, rap and hip-hop, all the big pop people; the Wicked soundtrack. And one thing that’s surprising to me: The kids who are into musicals are still into Hamilton! There’s also such a big interest in anime and manga. This age group seems to really like anime soundtracks. But I am so deeply not an expert in that area.

[Note: At this point, I am actively resisting asking about which anime the kids are into.]

Frankly [for] a lot of them, the music they're listening to is what they're hearing on TikTok. It's completely decontextualized from the artist or culture or even the entire song because they get 30 seconds of it, at most. But still, they're interested in it. On a field trip yesterday, I heard students singing at the tops of their lungs; I asked them what song it was and they didn't know because they heard it on social media. They know all the words, though! I’m not saying this to be negative. But there's a whole world of music they could explore and get to know the genre and context.

How did you end up with a record player in your library?

Well, I don't want to claim this is entirely my idea. There's another SFUSD librarian who has a record player. He has a huge range of stuff and he's very much a record collector and I'm not. But anyway, this is my first year at this school, and I took over for a librarian who was here for 15 years. She’s a legend. For some reason, she had the record player — a Newcomb Model ED-10B. But there are no records here, which is why I put out that call on Facebook.

How are you planning to set this up for students?

I'm hoping to set it up with a headphone splitter, and I’m hoping the kids can sit there and try it out and figure out how it works. There will be directions that I’ll put out. There are also some kids that spend as much time as possible in the library, and I think I'll train some of them so they can train other kids to use it. That's how it's gone with other things I have here: The most effective way to teach kids is to have them teach each other.

Some people suggested you could just check out records from the public library. Why not do that?

Quite a few people said that! But giving me records also means you're likely sacrificing them to whatever 12-year-olds are gonna do with them.

Why a record player? What's the appeal for middle schoolers?

The kids are really interested in anything old-school. We have a rotary phone in here and it's an object of deep fascination. They don't know how you dial it. They're very interested in analog technology.

How does it fit into what libraries are trying to do these days? 

Libraries have shifted a lot in the last 10 years in terms of their purpose. They're very much a spot for reading and literacy but also a place for curiosity. You see that reflected in a lot of the maker space type programs that are really common in public schools, often through the librarians.

You want kids to explore things they're curious about, whether that's through books or anything else. I have a bunch of SF maps on the wall that are also objects of deep fascination. There's a lot of evolution in how kids can be curious and what sorts of activities we can provide. Sometimes that's more traditional reading and research skills but also creating places for play and joy and connecting with others.

Many libraries are lively these days. It's not a silent space. Which I think is, in many ways, for the best.