University of Michigan School of Information
Distinguished UMSI alumnus John Szabo named Librarian of the Year

Thursday, 01/09/2025
By Abigail McFeeLos Angeles City Librarian John F. Szabo, who earned his Master of Library and Information Science from the University of Michigan School of Information in 1992, has been named Librarian of the Year by Library Journal. Szabo has served as director of the Los Angeles Public Library since 2012.

The prestigious award honors a professional librarian in North America for outstanding accomplishments that embody the highest service goals of the library profession. These include free access to information for all, the encouragement of reading, the enhancement of library services, and the strengthening of the library’s role in its community.
In his 30-year career, Szabo has served as library director in five districts across four states: Atlanta, Illinois, Florida and now California. In each of these roles, he has championed innovative library services that address critical community needs in areas including health disparities, workforce development, adult literacy, school readiness and emergent literacy for preschoolers.
A library director’s job title — whether president, CEO or commissioner — isn’t necessarily indicative of their role, since these titles vary across municipalities, writes Library Journal executive editor Lisa Peet. But in Szabo’s case, the title of “city librarian” couldn’t be more fitting.
“He is, in every way, the city’s librarian,” Peet writes. “He is not a native Angeleno, yet in his 12 years at LAPL Szabo has taken the genuine love of community that made him a compassionate and effective leader at his first library job, in a small, rural town of 8,000 residents, and scaled that up to serve a diverse urban population of nearly four million across 503 square miles.”
The LAPL serves the largest population of any public library in the United States, and in his tenure Szabo has prioritized hearing directly from Los Angelenos about their needs, collecting thousands of community suggestions — including children’s crayon drawings — and integrating them into the LAPL’s strategic plan.
In 1990, when he began the MILS program at UMSI — then called the School of Information and Library Science — Szabo aspired to become an interlibrary loan officer at a small college. These were his roots: He had fallen in love with the library profession while working in the interlibrary loan office at the University of Alabama.
His education at UMSI allowed him to embrace a broader focus, without losing his concern for individual needs.
The school encouraged hands-on learning at that time through the Head Librarian program, which allowed MILS students to run small libraries in U-M residence halls in exchange for housing and a stipend. Szabo found joy in developing programming, building the library’s collection and serving a diverse community. “Even though it was in a university environment, it had the flavor of a public library,” he told Library Journal.
When he graduated in 1992, Szabo impressively landed a director position at the Robinson Public Library District in southern Illinois. He made friends in the rural community by taking on a role in a community theater production of “Oklahoma!”.
This is a throughline in Szabo’s leadership: He enthusiastically works to become part of the communities he serves.
He nurtures this enthusiasm in his staff, too. Madeline Peña Feliz, associate director of community engagement and outreach at the LAPL, had been working at the library for several years when Szabo began his tenure. She recalled for Library Journal that in one of his first meetings with managers and staff, “Someone said, ‘We have ideas. We want to do things. Is it OK? Can we do them?’ He said, ‘As long as it’s legal, go for it.’”
Peña and Szabo created the L.A. Libros Festival, a citywide Spanish-language book celebration that drew 5,000 attendees last year.
Under Szabo’s leadership, the LAPL has expanded services related to immigrant integration, community health and financial literacy. In 2021, the needs and suggestions of staff led to the creation of the Library Experience Office, which contracts licensed social workers and representatives from local agencies to provide mental health and social services in LAPL branches. Library staff now receive trauma-informed training.
These dedicated professionals and resources have allowed the library to further its work of helping unhoused people find transitional housing, assisting low-income residents, and supporting library patrons who struggle with addiction — without placing undue burdens on library staff.
“One of the things that has such an impact on me, that I’m just so proud of — that makes me love this profession — is that we treat people with such dignity and respect,” Szabo told Library Journal. “It’s a service that doesn’t find its way into a brochure or a press release. But the kindness with which we treat people, and that service-oriented approach, is incredibly important.”
Read the full story of Szabo’s career and impact in the Library Journal.