City Librarian John Jessen Dies

A decades-long champion of reading and neighborhood engagement who bolstered the public library system’s social services as he led it through a pandemic, City Librarian John Jessen passed away from cancer on Friday. He was 56 years old.

Jessen, who died in hospice at his family’s Westville home, was appointed city librarian in December 2019 by then-Mayor Toni Harp. According to a press release put out by the mayor’s office at that time, he was the first person to be promoted from within the library’s staff to its top job since 1929.

Jessen notched a number of major achievements during his too-short tenure at the helm of the local library system, which coincided almost entirely with the start of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

He and Dixwell’s Stetson Branch Manager Diane Brown oversaw the opening of a reborn Stetson Library at the newly rebuilt and reopened Q House. He helped bring vaccine clinics and consulate pop-ups and passport services and Covid memorials and documentary screenings and social workers to the library, building off of its wealth of existing book-lending, job application, maker space, and youth support services.

“John told a lot of jokes. He had a good sense of humor. He was really committed to the library,” Diane Brown said Friday. ​“He was committed to the community. He was committed to the staff — he wanted us out in the community serving people. That’s what I loved about him.”

In a release, Mayor Justin Elicker called Jessen ​“a dedicated public servant, a great leader and a passionate champion of our public libraries.” New Haven Free Public Library Board of Directors Chair Lauren Anderson added: ​“John’s touch, his legacy, is woven across our system and city in so many ways — in the neighborhood children to whom he taught chess, in the many patrons he served with a smile, in the staff that he cared for and mentored, in the outreach and expansion of services, like our soon-to-be Sunday hours, for which he advocated so passionately, and in the example his work ethic and commitment set for others.”

Under his leadership, the library eliminated late fees, revamped its website, and kept its annual Mardi Gras tradition alive online during Covid.

Most recently, he and Mayor Justin Elicker successfully secured enough funding in next fiscal year’s budget to ensure that every library branch will be open on Sundays.

Born and raised in Iowa, Jessen first moved to New Haven in 2003 after more than a decade spent working in publishing and bookselling in New York City and elsewhere.

He earned a Master in Library Science degree from Southern Connecticut State University in 2008, and started working for the city’s library system in 2004. 

From 2007 to 2012, he worked as an outreach specialist for the library. From 2012 to 2017, he served as branch manager at the Hill’s Courtland Seymour Wilson library. And from 2017 to 2019, he worked as a deputy director of the library system as a whole.

Click here to read more about Jessen’s personal and professional background, as detailed in a press release sent out by the mayor’s office at the time of his appointment as city librarian in 2019. Click here to read a 2019 profile of Jessen written by the Arts Paper’s Lucy Gellman.

Friends may call Tuesday, May 31, 2022 from 5:00 — 8:00 p.m. at Howard K. Hill Funeral Services, 1287 Chapel St., New Haven. A mass of Christian Burial will take place Wednesday, June 1, 2022, at 10:00 am at St. Mary Parish, 5 Hillhouse Ave., New Haven. Interment will be private.

“The family requests those who wish to express sympathy to consider making a donation to a fund being established for garden and beautification projects at New Haven public library buildings. To contribute, visit the New Haven Free Public Library Foundation website at https://nhfpl.org/about/foundation/make-a-gift/ and indicate donation is dedicated in memory of John Jessen”. To leave a message of comfort for the Jessen family, please visit www.hkhfuneralservices..com

Paul Bass contributed to this article.