In her new memoir, Dorothy Lazard, longtime and now retired librarian, tells a migration story, a Black Power story, a multi-generational family story and a story that celebrates the enduring quest for education and freedom. 

We sit down with Lazard to discuss her new book, What You Don’t Know Will Make a Whole New World. We talk about her love of San Francisco and Oakland, her career in libraries and how reading transformed her life. The deeply beloved and now retired doyenne of the Oakland Public Library system, Lazard built a career carrying the torch for the potent role of libraries as a haven for youth, the ever-curious, the underserved and the often marginalized.  

Dorothy Lazard was born in St. Louis and grew up in San Francisco and Oakland. A librarian for nearly forty years, she joined the staff of the Oakland Public Library (OPL)  in 2000. From 2009 until her retirement in 2021, she was the head librarian of OPL’s Oakland History Center, where she encouraged people of all ages and backgrounds to explore local history. Beloved by her Bay Area community, she has been an indispensable resource for journalists, library patrons, and all the ever-curious that have crossed the threshold of OPL, and has featured in conversations on the history of Oakland and her own work in Oaklandside, KQED, and NBC Bay Area among others. She lives in Oakland.