Mychal Threets

Librarian, TikTok influencer advocating for reading
Solano County, California

Mychal Threets took to social media amid the pandemic with a single mission: Spread the love for libraries and reading through one post at a time.

Threets, 34, has become quite the social media sensation, garnering thousands of online fans with his viral TikTok videos and Instagram reels recounting moments during the course of his day as the supervising librarian at the Solano County Library in California. Followers have lauded him as “human sunshine,” “A modern-day Mr. Rogers meets LeVar Burton,” and “America’s favorite librarian.”

For Threets, his passion was to share in online videos what he calls “library joy.”

“Library joy is something that really can’t be defined in simple terms,” said Threets, who has more than a million followers across social media platforms. “But for me, it is being able to go to the library and just be myself. The library is a place where I could feel safe and comfortable, and that’s library joy.”

Threets began intermittently sharing his library stories in 2019 and ramped it up during the pandemic. Describing himself as “a shy kid,” he knows the joys and solace of books. Beverly Cleary, Marc Brown, Louis Sachar and Lois Lowry are among his favorite authors from childhood, who helped him to find his own voice.

“Literacy is liberation,” said Threets, who left the Solano County Library and currently serves as the resident librarian for PBS and the literacy ambassador for the Children Literacy Initiative.

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