Some people’s jobs will take them all over the country, but out of all the jobs that come to mind a librarian is not what most people expect.
However, new branch manager
has spent three years in Connecticut and the New England area, but decided to come back and be closer to her hometown and family.
Schilling has worked in libraries since 2009, starting as a librarian where she mostly focused on teen programs for seven years. She traveled through Ohio and Connecticut, but eventually decided she wanted to move up into library management.
“I decided I wanted to move up into management and this job felt like a really good fit for me because it’s attached to the high school so I could be a branch manager and still interact with teens,” Schilling said
Before Schilling started working in Plain Local she worked at the Dayton Metro Library, the Delaware County District Library and the Windsor Public Library in Connecticut. Although these jobs provided a lot of opportunities for employment, friends and travel, she wanted to move back to her hometown and be with her family and friends.
“…it’s been really awesome to be back in my hometown, because every other public library I’ve worked for has not been my hometown, so it has definitely been fun to be in a community where I know the community I know the people,” Schilling said. “I had some family who went to GlenOak, I had some friends who went here back when I was in high school,”
Schilling started working at the Plain Library Branch in June, and while the early days were mostly filled with training, she now has built up somewhat of a routine. She communicates with the principal often and reaches out to other community partners. She is in charge of the weekly shift schedule of the librarians and makes the daily desk schedule of who stands at what desk and when. Once a month she goes down to the main branch for meetings with the 10 other libraries in the district.
Since the library is a community center with activities for people of all ages you never know who could end up sitting at the tables as the days go on leading to a whole variety of people.
“Like any public library anyone could walk through the door, we definitely see a lot of teens because they come either during the school day or after school. We also see a lot of families with young children who come for things like story time…we also see a good amount of older adults, people who might be retired and they have lots of time to read,” Schilling said. “Every day is different, there is a lot of variety if you work in a public place or any customer service so every day is a little different and that keeps it fun and keeps it interesting.”
Since there is such a diverse group of people who come through the library, the programs need to be unique, interesting and connect to all people. To help her get more ideas as to what the community wants, Schilling encourages people to reach out to her to give her ideas. Lately she has been talking to students about starting a book club and she wants people to know if they have any ideas for possible programs to reach out at her email [email protected].
