Librarianship as Public Service: José Aponte, MLS ’76, College of Information Science 2026 Alumnus of the Year

By the time José Aponte heard that he had been named the inaugural Alumnus of the Year by the University of Arizona College of Information Science (InfoSci), his life’s work was already etched in the communities he had served: library branches revived and reimagined, programs launched to meet urgent human needs and the quiet yet radical belief that knowledge is a public right.

Still, he was stunned. “Gobsmacked,” he says. “I couldn’t believe it. I’ve never been a traditional librarian.”

Perhaps that’s why the honor feels so fitting. In José Aponte, InfoSci and the U of A celebrate not only an accomplished alumnus but a living blueprint for the kind of professional the world now demands: adaptive, community-rooted and unafraid to push boundaries.

A Story That Begins with Stories

Aponte’s journey into librarianship began, quite literally, in storytime. Born in New York City to a Puerto Rican mother who worked as a librarian, he got his first library job at age eight—reading aloud to children for 25 cents. It wasn’t play; it was service. And in many ways, it was destiny.

But the path from there to a four-decade career in public service was not direct. Aponte studied theater at Bard College, and spent two and a half years performing off-Broadway with the pioneering Living Theatre company. He rehearsed during the week and performed through the weekend. He had a place to live and a collective to feed him, but little else. “I wanted a life,” he recalls. “I told my mother, ‘I need something more sustainable.’ And she said, ‘What about library work?’”

He balked at first. “Mom, I’m an activist,” he told her. “I’m not cut out for filing books.” But then she took him to the library where she worked, and everything changed. He saw men playing guitars for children, poetry readings, community gatherings. This wasn’t a warehouse of books. It was a stage for public culture. “That cinched it,” he says. “I saw what libraries could be.”
  

Tucson, and What if?

Aponte enrolled in the University of Arizona’s Master’s in Library Science (now Master of Arts in Library and Information Science) through the Graduate Library Institute for Spanish-Speaking Americans, a bilingual program designed to address the underrepresentation of Latinos in library science. “It was a gift,” he says. “It gave me the tools to build a life and a legacy.”

He joined a cohort of 15 students from across the country—musicians, writers, aspiring changemakers. Together, they imagined new possibilities for librarianship: bilingual programming, culturally competent collections and the library not as a static institution, but as a dynamic public square. “We asked: What if?” Aponte recalls.

After graduation in 1976, he began work at the Tucson Public Library, splitting time between the reference desk and the children’s room. It was his first paid library job.

The Library as a Civic Engine

Over the next four decades, Aponte led library systems in Florida, Colorado and California. His philosophy remained constant: libraries are not neutral. They are civic engines—spaces for access, dignity and democratic participation.

He served as library director in Oceanside, California, and later became deputy city manager. But it was in San Diego County, from 2005 to 2016, that his leadership reached its fullest expression.

In just over a decade, Aponte oversaw the construction of ten new libraries, expanded programming across all branches and dramatically increased public access. This during the Great Recession, when most public systems were scaling back. “We were not a library of enormous resource,” he says. “This was not the New York Public Library, it wasn't the Chicago Public Library, it was a county library.” What Aponte and his team did have was the will and perseverance to succeed.

Under his direction, the San Diego County Library offered foreclosure workshops, job training for immigrants and reentry services for formerly incarcerated people, including a now-renowned program that used library meeting rooms for counseling and honing resumes.

Aponte’s leadership was grounded in the belief that libraries are not just public spaces, they are civic partners. His strategic plans reflected this conviction.

“For us to succeed, we had to look out, not in,” he says. “We had to integrate ourselves into the movement for change within the community. That notion—that citizens have a job to do—guided everything. Every time we approached a strategic plan or a year of work, we kept it pretty simple.”

From program design to budgeting, Aponte emphasized clarity of purpose and alignment with the community’s evolving needs. His approach helped shift libraries from passive institutions to proactive engines of public service.

In 2012, the system was named Library Journal’s Library of the Year. But to Aponte, the real reward was impact. “The institution is not here for us,” he says. “It’s here for the people.”
  

A Life of Cultural and Political Engagement

Aponte’s impact extended far beyond any one library system. In 2002, he was appointed by President George W. Bush to the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science and the Laura Bush Foundation for America’s Libraries—singular honors, especially for a lifelong Democrat and outspoken advocate for civil rights.

“I never asked for it,” he says of his national appointments. Aponte believes recognition comes when the work speaks for itself and when, as he puts it, “the work is righteous.”

His efforts to bring cultural competency and representation to library science earned him national recognition, including the 2004 Trejo Librarian of the Year Award from REFORMA, and the John Dewey Award for Distinguished Public Service from Bard College in 2013. He was named a Library Journal Mover & Shaker in 2003 and honored with the University of Tennessee’s Diversity Award in 2011.

But Aponte’s influence is not only administrative or academic—it’s profoundly personal. As a child, he and his sister integrated their Albany, New York elementary school in the early 1960s. He remembers being called slurs by classmates who couldn’t place his Puerto Rican identity. His mother, ever the educator, responded not with outrage but with instruction. She took her children to Mexico, taught them the richness of Latin American history and insisted they be proud of who they were.

That lesson stuck. It animates his photography project Indígena: A Mestizo Journey, which documents Indigenous and mestizo communities across the Americas, from Bolivia to Mexico to Peru. “The vitality of the institution,” he says of the library, “is what keeps me going.” Even in retirement, he has mounted more than 50 exhibitions in public libraries.

Teaching the Next Generation

Aponte remains deeply involved in the field, serving on the steering committee of the University of Arizona’s Knowledge River Scholars Program and mentoring new library leaders. He offers his time generously but insists on honesty.

“My advice?” he says. “Take initiative. Stay engaged. Think strategically. And above all, be honest. Know who you are and what you stand for. If you don’t, the world will decide for you.”

He continues to serve on the board of a community clinic in Oceanside and remains a sought-after speaker and advisor. For Aponte, “retirement” is a relative term.
  

A Living Legacy for the College of Information Science

For InfoSci, naming José Aponte as its first Alumnus of the Year is more than a ceremonial gesture. It’s a vision statement.

Aponte represents the future the college seeks to cultivate: interdisciplinary, socially engaged and rooted in the idea that information is not just a tool but a right. His life’s work invites students to reimagine librarianship not as a job, but as a calling.

“The next generation is out there,” he says. “They’re waiting for permission to lead with their values. I’m here to say: you have it.”

In Aponte, students can see what’s possible: a librarian who builds cities, heals divisions, inspires movements. A man who started with stories, and never stopped telling them.