• 12.2005-8.2009, Spanish Peaks Library District, Adult Programing Coordinator
• 9.2009-present, Spanish Peaks Library District, Combined Circulation/Reference Supervisor
• 3.2013-present, LiveWell Huerfano County, Access to Food steering committee member

I spent fifteen years in food service – mostly front-of-the-house – before I started working in libraries, and when I found myself in a quiet office in an unused part of the building all alone, I thought, I am never going back, never ever.

But there’s something addictive about the pace, the human connection, the constant change and challenge, the immediacy. I couldn’t stay away.

It took all of about two months after I started in collection development to start tugging at the entangled threads of collection-driven programming and program-driven acquisitions, and before I knew it, I was planning events. ILL interviews turned into broader conversations with patrons about their passions and projects, and I’d find myself popping up with why don’t you come do a lecture – lead a discussion group – perform – loan some art –

I started bringing my own geekery into the library. I worked with the teen librarian for several years to develop volunteerism-centered projects for the group of kids that included my own two tweens. When I became interested in local food, I worked with the county extension office to run a series of Master Gardener lectures. I drew on my contacts in the local art community to help organize shows, donations, and performances. and showed my own art at some of those events. When I became involved in a history club, I arranged for the club to hold its meetings at the library, drawing curious and enthusiastic people from each subcommunity into the other.

After we moved into our new building, I was too swamped with my primary duties to continue adult programming, but I stayed in public services in a different way: first pitching in a few hours a week at the circ desk, expanding gradually, taking over more reference work, computer and personal tech device help, and light IT troubleshooting, and eventually settling at a split schedule – 20 hours per week supervising the floor, 20 hours in tech services.

Current project: (non-library, volunteer) Organizing seven sessions during an upcoming four-day, 1000+attendee medieval faire, for attendees to display and talk about their art, craft, and experimental archaeology projects.

Current fascinations: Cross-media popular culture (the Marvel media experiment, the many excellent television series based on books, reboots and re-imaginings); content creation in libraries.

Best learning experience: Every CLiC Spring Workshop, spending two days with library people from around the region, mostly other small-rural libraries, brainstorming and sharing stories face-to-face. I come home every year with my head so full that it takes days to sort it out.

Proudest accomplishments:

• Planning and spearheading 3-day, 500+ attendee new building Grand Opening event: Friday night stakeholder party, Saturday morning ribbon-cutting, live music performances funded by a Colorado Council on the Arts Small Step Grant, themed art classes for various age groups, community picnic, local author lecture, and other activities.
• Work over a two-year period, in concert with the teen librarian and a group of about a dozen tweens and young teens, focusing on cooperation, volunteerism, and self-improvement. These kids worked at the local nonprofit theatre as well as the library, gained job skills and earned privileges including after-hours library lock-in parties. Their library stories later led to several El Pomar grants to the library, and every one of those kids is now in college or college-bound.
• Reconstructing the patron request workflow to eliminate data duplication, inefficiencies, and communication errors, and training other reference and circ staff to take complete first-tier requests on the spot and flag problem ILLs and requests to purchase within the ILL module. Decisions can be made quickly and all process data remains attached to the patron’s name where desk staff have access to it from start to finish, and fulfillment times have dropped from 3 weeks to 5 business days.

Portfolio:

Gardening workshop (2009)