by Zach Miller
Quick Summary
In honor of the 50th anniversary of the Capitol Area Library Consortium (CALCO), we are profiling a number of its members for our readers. The Department of Employment & Economic Development (DEED) Library was founded in 2003. Under the able leadership of Dru Frykberg, the library has successfully navigated a mid-pandemic move and a shifting workplace environment.
On February 4, 2021, a Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development press release announced the agency’s intention to move to the Great Northern Building by August 1 of that year. DEED would occupy the 11th, 12th, and 13th floors of its new home. The library? It would gain an excellent view of the State Capitol.
Less than a year before the announcement, every morning of the week, DEED staff streamed into their offices at the First National Bank building, just two blocks away in downtown Saint Paul. The DEED Library and its librarian, Dru Frykberg, welcomed visitors from the skyway. The library served as a key venue where staff could meet with the public.
Today, approximately 600 of DEED's 1,500 workers are based in the Great Northern Building, but far fewer actually report to the office each day. DEED offers hybrid schedules and encourages staff to come to the office once per week. Frykberg comes in every day, so she doesn’t miss the chance to connect with coworkers. Wednesdays are busiest.
As the DEED Library's sole staff member, Frykberg is a bit like a small-town librarian, taking care of everything on her own. While the rest of the state was struggling through the heart of the COVID-19 pandemic, she was re-envisioning her library and preparing to move it, lock, stock, and barrel. Frykberg weeded the collection extensively, and she rehomed as many materials as she could with partners at the Minnesota History Center, Ramsey County Historical Society, Hennepin County Historical Society, and elsewhere. She packed everything and met colleagues, masks on, at the curb and in the skyway. To complete the move, she packed the rest for movers to take, and unpacked it again on the other side. All the while, she maintained her connection to her patrons at DEED.
DEED’s mission is to ensure that the economy works for everyone in Minnesota. Outside its headquarters in the Great Northern Building, the agency runs nearly 50 CareerForce locations that provide assistance for job seekers and employers. DEED also offers Vocational Rehabilitation Services and State Services for the Blind to clients statewide.
DEED Library helps agency staff work smarter and faster by providing research assistance and other library services so they can do their best. Frykberg helps staff prepare for meetings with company officials, researches best practices to help design services and programs to serve job seekers, and researches companies and industries so the agency can ensure that Minnesota remains competitive. She also navigates business directories and lists to help agency analysts survey Minnesota business owners. When the Governor meets with company officials, Frykberg and her colleagues might create a backgrounder for him.
It’s an enormous enterprise for a solo librarian to support, but that's not all she does. Frykberg also sends out weekly library alerts on 16(!) different themes, including business development, community finance, veteran employment, and workplace wellness. The alerts, possibly the library's most popular service, include news highlights, scholarly research, and library updates.
Frykberg is an important conduit into her agency for Minnesota's library community, too, and that includes Minitex. She's fond of eLibrary Minnesota's LearningExpress database, and has conducted outreach, with some help from Matt Lee, to ensure that DEED's CareerForce staff promote it to job seekers. She plans similar outreach with regard to Minitex's recently acquired health databases for Disability Determination Services staff. Frykberg subscribes to NewsBank through Minitex Cooperative Purchasing. It’s heavily used at DEED. “For Minnesota news, no other resource provides their depth and breadth,” she says. “And their powerful share function sets them apart.”
DEED Library anticipates the needs of agency staff as they change with the times. That fact is reflected in the pioneering DEI Book Club Frykberg founded more than six years ago with DEED’s Office of Diversity and Equal Opportunity.
The library is well settled into its new location, modern and welcoming. There's still space available for informal small-group meetings, and three desks offer colleagues, especially remote staff onsite for meetings and training, a way to work from headquarters and connect to the agency's network. The collection is smaller, and the visitors fewer.
Frykberg may be the only librarian at DEED, but she does have colleagues she can count on at the other CALCO libraries. "We know each other," says Frykberg. "And we learn more every time we come together. Sometimes I have something they need, and sometimes it's the other way around. But we definitely do depend on each other." They meet formally every other month, and enjoyed planning the 50th anniversary celebration together.
Looking to the future, Frykberg plans to continue meeting new needs as they come. “There’s growing interest in work-related audiobooks,” she says. “I hope to be able to develop a digital book collection to meet that need.”
Frykberg's library career began with five years at the Lake County Public Library system in northwest Indiana. From there she proceeded to the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication Library at Iowa State University, where she spent five more years before joining DEED in 2006. Despite having grown up in Omaha, Frykberg is a Hoosier twice over, holding a bachelor's degree in journalism and criminal justice as well as a master's degree in library science from Indiana University.
ABOUT CALCO
Capitol Area Library Consortium (CALCO) libraries work cooperatively to promote and enhance library services in state government through unique and diverse collections of resources. CALCO strives for easy access to state government library services and resources by state employees, local government officials, Minnesota citizens, and other libraries nationwide. These are the CALCO libraries:
- Attorney General Library
- Department of Employment and Economic Development Library
- Department of Health, Barr Library
- Department of Natural Resources Library
- Department of Revenue Library
- Department of Transportation Library
- Legislative Reference Library
- Minnesota Historical Society Library
- Minnesota State Services for the Blind
- Perpich Center for Arts Education Library
- Pollution Control Agency Library
- State Law Library
- State Library Services
