I’m happy to announce that in addition to the other things I’m doing, I’m now also the director of the North Plains Public Library. Located about 20 miles outside of Portland, this small town of 1755 people has a beautiful library building that is staffed by three paid employees and a ton of volunteers. The 2500sqft building is only 6 months old. The previous three years the library was housed in the storage room of the town’s community center.
The job is very part time but is going to keep me busy. You might be able to imagine that I’ve got a bunch of potential ideas for the library, but am in the process of learning as much as I can before actually doing anything. What excites me most about the opportunity is that, being 6 months old, the library hasn’t had time to learn bad habits or nurture sacred cows. Tabula rasa!
I just spent an hour in the building and noticed a few things:
- The library has no reference desk. This indicates that the focus for this library might be content and community. Progressive!
- The shelves are already near full. Hmm.
- There’s no wifi. Yet.
- There are 12 internet stations managed by SAM.
- The library signage is pretty tolerable.
- We have a Scrabble club. AWESOME.
Take a look at the building in my flickr set: North Plains Public Library
Wow! The good people of North Plains are lucky to have you! Enjoy your new playground! Sounds like a great fit :)
woo hoo!
Congratulations! You be teh management.
How completely cool is that????? Now, you’ll have to do library director stuff…. whatever that is.
Neato, indeed!
Congratulations!
Scrabble=interactivity=gaming
be it old skool.
Sometimes i get this feeling when reading all these American library blogs that you people are travelling all over the country. Job here, presentation there. The list is long.
We tend to follow up on you guys though. In 2 years the Netherlands will have more mobile librarians too :-)
GLHF
Congratulations and good luck with the new job – they are very lucky to have you.
Congratulations! What an exciting opportunity! The community is lucky to have you.
ROCK ON!!! Congrats! Go forth and direct!
Awwww yeah! Who’s the luckiest community 20 miles outside of Portland? It’s the NP, baby! Congrats to you Aaron and also to the folks in North Plains for this staffing coup.
Congratulations, Aaron!
Nice! For you and for the community. It’s a great opportunity, the sort that I dreamed of, but never could have taken advantage of, in that I entered librarianship as a single mom of two. As a new manager, I’m here to tell you that management isn’t the big scary thing so many people think it is.
Does North Plains have any idea who they just hired? Lucky them.–rochelle
Is everyone is North Plains drunk?
Awesome! Congrats, Aaron:) Look forward to hearing all about your adventures in directing ;)
OK – I almost spewed my coffee when I saw Blake’s comment – that one was pretty funny! And then I thought… you just might be the first tattoed library director ever! Hmm…
Congrats! Nothing like a real world laboratory to play with :)
Beautiful facilities, too.
Wow! Looks like that move to the great northwest is really paying of you. Congrats! on the new position. I’ll look forward to hearing about your adventures. :) PS: What a great looking building
Wow GREAT! Congratulations!
Moqub
Wow! You even have a SAM system. What a pretty place. I liked all the pictures on your Flickr site, which I saw before this announcement. Congratulations.
Hey, congrats!!
Absolutely EXCELLENT!!!! Congrats. Are you going to stay in LibraryWorld now, or still planning to go into school media? Shan
Congratulations! What a great opportunity. I would go nuts over the Scrabble Club too!
Congratulations, Aaron! Sounds like you’re going to have a great time at your new library!
Congratulations! Looks like an awesome building and a great opportunity!
Ditto on the congrats!
Did I not say to you that it was too bad you were leaving libraryland because libraryland needs people such as you in management? Well, if I didn’t, I thought it. Glad you couldn’t stay away and congrats on what sounds like a wonderful petrie dish.
This is good for libraries, good for North Plains, and something for the rest of us to watch. Aaron is probably the most original and creative librarian I’ve met in some time, and it’s great to see him have a library playground to work in!
Way cool and congrats! Awesome. I’ll be interested to see what you do with the reference desk situation.
Congrats Aaron! They got a “GEM” when they hired you. Best of Luck!
Like Rick, I also saw the pictures before the post, and I thought, “Wow, pretty library–I bet Aaron wishes he could work there!” And lo and behold. . . congratulations, and welcome to the management club (though I’m only a lowly middle manager, head well below the fray).
Way to go Aaron! You are a natural leader and they are lucky to have you. Enjoy the position! My best to you!
I think Nelson Muntz just walked by your office and said Ha-Ha!
I hope you get a budget for toys. You’ll probably have to develop a policy for errant Wii controllers.
Hi Aaron!
Congratulations…..we miss you here at our library, but find it fun keeping track via your blog and flickr! The library really looks beautiful. Enjoy!
You’ll have to get your staff to blog about what it’s like to have a tech-savvy director who sees the infinite possibilities and how the IT people cope with hearing “yes” all the time! (From what you said about staff size, i bet you ARE the IT person.)
Congrats and best wishes!