As I enter my sixth week at the Benson Memorial Library, I think I can say that I’ve somewhat successfully made the jump from a Youth Services Librarian to a Library Director. I’ve had two board meetings, was involved in some internet outages at the library, and a few other things that I can’t remember but trust me they were kind of a big deal. Everything is a big deal at the library!

I’ve put a lot of my focus on the actual building these days. I look up, I look down, and I look all around to make sure this place is in tip-top shape. I see a spot on the carpet and you know what I wanna do? I want to find a reasonably priced carpet cleaning service to get rid of that stain. I noticed that we have a broken gutter in the back of our property that may or may not have led to some water damage last winter. You know what? That gutter needs to be fixed or we’ll be in bad shape if it continues to get worse.

I am finding that I am a library director that thinks about things a lot. I think about how we can improve and better serve our community. I think about the little details that our every day users and staff encounter at the library. I think about what it takes to create a fun, relaxed, and positive work environment. I think about how we need to take care of our building. After all, it is one of our most important assets. And isn’t it just SO beautiful?

I think one of my proudest moments as a library director has been working with a local plumbing and heating service to figure out why our basements were so cold. At times, our Board Room and Story Time Room were hovering around 50-55 degrees. It was not an ideal temperature to have any kind of event! We were confused. The air conditioning was set to 70 degrees. Why would these rooms be so much cooler than everything else? It turns out it was a simple fix. Our two dehumidifiers were working overtime this summer. For some reason, they had been set to 50 degrees. They were running constantly. And guess what else? The dehumidifiers also acted as our basement air conditioners. The cool air they were pumping out was pumped back into our Board Room and Story Time Room. That’s why it was so cold! After looking at the settings, we increased the temperature on the dehumidifiers to find the sweet spot and VOILA! We had a temperature that both the patrons and the dehumidifiers could live with. Awesome.

Sometimes, the best things you can do for a library involve things like temperature, dehumidifiers, and the quality of the experience.