Joseph Anderson

Joseph N. Anderson is a humanist librarian advocating for people-centred libraries. Having left high school in 1999, his wife Amy later convinced him to continue his education to better himself and provide for their growing family. He passed the GED test in 2001, earned an AS degree in general studies from Salt Lake Community College in 2004, a BA cum laude in history from Utah State in 2007, and an MS in library science from Clarion University of Pennsylvania in 2009. He has worked in public libraries for 20 years, including the last 15 years at the Logan Library, where he is now the Assistant Director & Adult Nonfiction Librarian. His specialities include maintaining adult non-fiction collections (the Dewey classes, biography, reference, local history, and educational audio/video), customer service, research, working with Friends groups, and defending intellectual freedom. He’s an active member of the Utah Library Association and the Cache Valley Library Association, which he helped establish more than a decade ago. He was named CVLA’s 2024 Library Hero.

Joseph & Amy are the parents of four daughters, one son, and one son-in-law. A lifelong Anglophile, he enjoys reading The Guardian, the work of Thomas Hardy, and medieval English history; listening to Britpop, the BBC World Service, and the work of Ralph Vaughan Williams; watching Sky News, the work of Laurence Olivier, and adaptations of Brit lit; supporting Dorchester Town FC, the Three Lions, and the Lionesses; and observing Anglican worship, Westminster politics, and UK-Ireland relations.