the new Cody library, my sort of new job, and other news

I realized long ago that I was never going to be a newsy blogger. There are plenty of other people out there reporting on new things, so I don’t. Sometimes, however, I really ought to report some news about what’s happening at my actual librarian job.

I came out to interview for this job in January of 2006. That same week, the Cap Tax II campaign to fund a new Cody library kicked off. I arrived on the job in March and got to work on that website not too long afterwards. That November, I got to celebrate not only the trouncing of the Republican majority in Congress but also the passage of the cap tax. (In fact, I was on the road on vacation the day after election day. We stopped in Farson to get gas, and I called the library from a payphone to get the news.) Some months after that, I started work on what would become the Park County Library website , and last October I attended the groundbreaking for the new library.

This Saturday, the old Cody library will close its doors for the last time. The new library will open six weeks later, on October 4th, and it should be a site to behold: three times the size of the incredibly overcrowded current library (where the branch manager and the circulation manager both have desks right behind the circulation desk, and boxes of donated books line the walls along the entrance).

I’m thrilled that I’ll get to be there. And since, although they’re not really connected, my progress in my job and the progress of the Cody library project have been intertwined in my time here, I’m also excited to tell you about the ways my job is changing. While I’ll remain as a librarian in Meeteetse and continue to do collection development and instruction and programming there, I’m turning over a lot of my administrative duties to my extremely able coworker. That will give me time to be a traveling librarian one day a week and a virtual librarian another. I’ll be traveling to the Powell and Cody libraries to do staff training and, eventually, to teach some classes for the public. And one day a week (or, more likely, hours throughout the week that add up to about a day a week), I’ll be working on our virtual branch, developing web content (like this silly little screencast I just made) and learning more about whatever I need to learn. (I’ve got a ways to go before I’ll meet Mabel Wilkinson’s requirements , but maybe someday.) I look forward to continuing to grow with the library system where I work.