“I like it when someone is successful, and I helped them get there.”

Maurice Coleman, SJSU Podcaster
Baltimore, Maryland

Maurice Coleman is an inspirational speaker and mentor. Over the past thirty years, he has provided countless workshops and training sessions internationally for various organizations, youth centers and community stakeholders. One year ago, Maurice brought his expertise to the San Jose State University (SJSU) School of Information (iSchool) with the iSchool-sponsored podcast Information Gone Wild. He hosts the podcast along with his two colleagues, and it has become an integral and vibrant part of the SJSU iSchool community. The podcast covers various areas of information science, and students can listen to stories from people working in different areas of the profession.

Training and Mentorship

Maurice says, “No one dreams of being a trainer,” rather, “you end up having some aptitude at it, you’re good at it, and people want you to do it.” Despite never seeing himself as a trainer, Maurice has had a long and successful career training, mentoring, and inspiring people from different professions and walks of life.

His professional career started in the early nineties for the nonprofit organization Citizens Committee for New York City (CCNYC). The CCNYC works to finance and help neighborhood members become better community organizers. Maurice taught community leaders how to start block or neighborhood associations, create tenant groups, run meetings, open bank accounts, run block parties, and much more.

“The best part of being a trainer is watching the person develop, grow, learn new skills and do new things. That’s where the fun is.”

Maurice’s ability to help people succeed led him to form his consulting practice, Coleman & Associations. He had his first client in 1995, and over the past three decades, the practice has grown to help organizations like libraries expand and succeed.

Libraries

In 2000, Maurice left the Citizens Committee of New York City to become the director of  Communication NET at PASA. There he supported the work of 400 New York City youth groups with training and technology support. In 2001, he relocated to Maryland and a year later started a job at a county library, where he has been for almost 22 years. He says he likes working with public libraries because it keeps him “involved with the people.” He conducts workshops for the public and staff both virtually and in person to accommodate different people’s learning needs.

“Part of training is meeting the client’s needs as best you can in the most convenient way possible for them. Any service organization has to serve the customers where they are. That’s why I love outreach services in libraries. I love it when people take the library to people. Why not put a library branch in the mall? There are so many people in the mall. You would capture more people who wouldn’t necessarily go to the library.”

T is For Training

While Maurice was attending a series of conferences, he noticed that trainers in libraries are usually the “only people in their system doing it, so they can’t necessarily bounce ideas off one another.” If he wanted to talk to someone who “knows something about staff development, or developing workshops or evaluations, he would have to ping his professional network. For this reason, Maurice decided to start his podcast T is for Training. He began it in 2008, and it has been steadily evolving and growing ever since. 

“I started the podcast because I needed it. It was a way of getting my professional network together every two weeks. At the time, podcasts were new and there was no space dedicated specifically to training. I wanted to recreate the feeling of a conference, where you run into really cool people and have a place to talk about interesting and similar ideas and issues.”

The genesis of the show was specific to library trainers, but over the years the episode content has branched into different subjects as varied as AI in the classroom, mentoring, and existentialism. Every two weeks, there is a focused discussion, and everyone is invited to call in and chat.

Information Gone Wild

T is for Training isn’t Maurice’s only podcast. One year ago, he began the San Jose State University (SJSU) School of Information (iSchool) sponsored podcast Information Gone Wild. The podcast is an extension of his consulting practice, and it was born out of a conversation between Maurice, co-host Paul Signorelli, and Dr. Anthony Chow (director of the SJSU iSchool) at the American Library Association (ALA) Midwinter session in Baltimore in 2024.

Maurice hosts the podcast with his colleagues, Paul Signorelli and Essraa Nawar, along with their producer (and current iSchool Student) Abbie Swanson. Together, the team picks their guests and topic content about “everything and anything related to library science.” The group aims to appeal to “current students, alums and SJSU adjacent people.”

“The podcast is meant to be fun, conversational, and topical. We like to highlight almost any library science area that we can. It could be advocacy, military libraries, censorship, AI, school librarians, or topical issues. We want to promote the not-quite-as-seen areas of librarianship, too. We ask ourselves what are some questions students would like to know the answers to.”

Maurice says he has loved working on the podcast, and that it has been a real “hoot and a holler.”

“I always like to say, I don’t want to be the smartest person in the room. I always find that if you have smart and interesting people talking in a room, you are going to learn something. I learn something every single time I do Information Gone Wild. I always appreciate the time with the guests and with my co-hosts. I always get a lot out of it.”

Advice for Students

“Firstly, take advantage of the professional network at your fingertips. A little bit of work can lead to lifelong friendships and professional contacts. Meet people, talk to people, talk to your professors. All the SJSU professors are working professionals, so take advantage of that. Don’t be shy at all those big events, walk up and introduce yourself.  Don’t be afraid to ask anyone a question. The only thing they can do is say no. If you are shy, write an email. Secondly, with any professional situation you are in, make sure you introduce people who may not know each other in professional settings. If you are talking with someone and someone else walks by whom you know, introduce them to each other. What you are doing is building connections and influence at the same time.”