I had been working at Northfield Public Library as their Outreach Coordinator (read bookmobile librarian/driver) for 3 years when the lovely Lynne Young, Northfield's then-director, approached me to tell me she was in talks with my hometown, Lonsdale, which is one town over, to open a branch library there and that she had me in mind to be the branch manager. Wow! I was both flattered and elated at the thought. A commute most people dream of -- I could literally walk to work if I chose -- and a step up in responsibility on top of that. I was extremely hopeful that I might really get the gig.
Long story short, the arrangement to have Northfield open the new library as a branch fell through, but the library was still going ahead as its own entity. Since this was 2009, I have to pause to give props to the City of Lonsdale for having the courage to continue with the project of opening a library in the face of the Great Recession. Suddenly the search was on for a director, not a branch manager. Lacking an MLS/MLIS, I had little hope of getting the job at that point, but thought, if you don't try, you don't get, so I applied. As it turns out, already serving as Lonsdale's librarian via bookmobile and having my name proposed for the branch manager gig along with being a resident of the town, well, the stars aligned in my favor and, flash-bang, you may call me director.
I had vaulted from shelver to director in 4 years! Yes, a meteoric rise, but there was no time to bask in the accomplishment, my start date was November 9 and the library was supposed to be opening just after the first of the year! The space was still unfinished; there was nothing in it except some drop cloths, a mini fridge and a microwave that both had to yet to be installed, some folding tables and chairs and several boxes of donated books. I felt like the board members of the Weber Motor Company when the Great Leslie proposed a car race from New York to Paris -- incredulous at the feat set before me. (If you don't get that reference, you need to do yourself the favor of watching Blake Edward's classic 1965 comedy "The Great Race" starring Tony Curtis, Peter Falk, Jack Lemmon and Natalie Wood. You're welcome in advance.) Ready, set, go!
What came next was not simply a steep learning curve, but a vertical ascent. This wasn't drinking from a fire hydrant, this was trying to stand at the bottom of Niagara Falls and keep from being crushed as you climbed. I didn't even know what I didn't know! I had no master's degree, simply an English BA (Garrison Keillor, I tip my hat to you, sir!) with a Poly Sci Minor and the library science, both theoretical and practical, I had been taught by the fantastically talented staff at Northfield Public Library and the marvelous folks at SELCO (Southeastern Libraries Cooperating), led by the fabulous Ann Hutton, who had happily, generously and continuously shared their vast knowledge and expertise with me. Even so, I knew I had Everest before me, so the very first thing I did was approach Lynne Young and my former supervisor and friend, Leesa Wisdorf and ask if they would mentor me. They both graciously and thankfully said yes. Whew! What peace of mind that gave me having those two powerhouse women to turn to. I will never be able to convey to either of them just how much that support meant.
The shelving for the library and some furniture had been ordered by the city administrator and library board before I was hired and, I was told, it was being manufactured and would be installed about mid-December. Hooray! One thing checked off the to-do list already! Or so I thought. Note to all library boards: Do not try to purchase shelving for your library without your director unless someone among you has working knowledge of a library. But I digress. More on this topic later.
I spent my first days sitting on the floor on top of plastic drop cloths still covered in sheetrock dust with a laptop and a cordless phone, both of which I had brought from home. There was so much white noise and frenzy in my head that it didn't dawn on me to bring one of the folding tables and a folding chair into the library from their storage space across the hall in one of the meeting rooms until about day three. It sounds stupid, I know, but there was just so much to do I barely knew where to start.
I ordered myself a desk and a chair, and then I began asking questions. Who do I buy books from? Computers? Which magazines are essential to carry? How do you process a book, a CD, a DVD, a magazine, etc? Where do you buy the materials you use to process the books? How do you set up loan periods and fine and fee schedules? When can I hire staff? What is the process for hiring staff? What font is most legible for spine labels? Who is going to read through and interview the circulation clerk and shelver job applicants? Who do press releases go to? Is there insurance? What kind, what is covered and who is the insurance company? Who is supposed to come and finish touching up the drywall and ceiling and unpack and install the microwave and refrigerator? Who do I go through the punch list with? What kinds of and how many telephones should I buy? How many computers? Shelving carts? Office supplies?
Simply setting up accounts with all the companies I needed to order things from was daunting. Many of the aforementioned questions I asked my friends from SELCO and Northfield, who patiently and thoroughly answered every question every time. I was lying awake at night formulating questions. When I did sleep, the recurring nightmare came. In it, I had forgotten one integral component in creating the library and everyone realized what a huge mistake it had been to hire me and what a miserable failure I was. The forgotten thing itself was elusive, never concrete, but the nightmare was still terrifying. The confidence and calm they tell me I displayed outwardly were not manifested in my head. The answer to all those who does x, y and z questions was, frighteningly, almost always, ME.
The whole town of Lonsdale, about 3,500 people, meantime, was eagerly anticipating their new library. Located on the bottom floor of the new three story senior living campus called The Villages of Lonsdale, it was easy for folks to stop in unannounced to satisfy their curiosity, drop off donated items and see what progress I was (or was not) making. The delays had stacked up before I was even hired, so the community and the board were eager for the library to open. Because of that, visitors, well-wishers and people offering donations were regular. I welcomed them warmly, talked to them extensively, thanked them for the wonderful donations gratefully and hid my inner turmoil as I tried not to panic at all the lost time spent off task every time someone dropped in. I instinctively knew that I was building relationships with the community before the doors even opened, and so I took deep, calming breaths and did my best to receive them all graciously, every time.
The frantic hissing in my head was increasing instead of abating. Officially, I worked Monday through Friday from 8a to 5p. In reality, there was barely a moment of that time in the run up to opening day that I spent doing anything else and if you doubt the veracity of that statement, just ask my husband or kids. Oh, yes. They remember. Every single thing was ultimately my responsibility. Every. Single. Thing. I soon asked about how quickly I could begin the hiring process for bringing staff on board, but was instructed by the mayor and city administrator to wait in order to preserve the tiny budget (approximately $100,000). It was clear to me that I needed help in the form of people paid to work, but it was also clear that I wasn't going to get it as quickly as I needed it. I wondered briefly if the expectation was for me to wave my magic wand with a flourish, smile and simply make it so, but I had no time to dwell on it, so I set about figuring out how to get help in other ways. My very wise mother had taught me that there is more than one way to skin a cat and, fortunately, I have always risen to a task under pressure, so I turned to my number one supporters and drafted my immediate family. My dear husband, son and daughter, all three, spent hours weeding donations and sorting and processing books and other library materials. My handy spouse hung coat racks, assembled furniture, wired a/v equipment, installed firewalls, shelving, computers -- you name it and he did it. He and my two kids processed dozens of materials in their spare time.
I lobbied for and finally received permission to advertise for, interview and hire a circulation clerk and a shelver and expedited that process in order to delegate at least some of the myriad of tasks I was still facing. The circ clerk would work 20 hours per week and the shelver 10. That might not seem like a lot, but I was desperate for someone besides just my family to share the work load. Kym El-Wailli and Deanna Jones gamely answered the call and I was able to phone them to offer them their positions as circ clerk and shelver, respectively on Christmas Eve. What a tremendous asset those two were from day one! Kym's enthusiasm and Deanna's steadfastness gave me courage and confidence, which I sorely needed. They stepped in and took over many of the tasks I had been handling myself or drafting my dear family to perform, freeing me to focus on things like composing a registration form and buying and cataloging materials.
In addition to this dynamic duo, I also got a phone call out of the blue from a complete stranger, the wonderful Kristy Hegberg, who was then a student at St. Catherine's in their MLIS program and was wondering if I might like to have her come and work for me as an unpaid intern. (YES, PLEASE!) Fortune was really smiling on me when it brought Kristy because she had worked for several years in a nearby SELCO library and knew Horizon and add-item cataloging, so she jumped right in from day one. Dear Kristy went on to work for Rasmussen College in Mankato a few months later, and now has landed at the Minnesota State Academy for the Deaf in Faribault as the librarian there, lucky for them. Before she left me, she and her classmates created a wonderful web site for Lonsdale Public Library in their web design class. Any time someone was able to take a whole task completely off my overloaded plate, I was flooded with gratitude and relief and Kristy led that charge like the superhero that she is.
My next strategic move was a brilliant suggestion proposed by my friend and mentor, Leesa Wisdorf. She advised me to host processing parties by inviting the people of Lonsdale to come in on a couple of Saturday mornings to learn how to process the books en masse in assembly-line fashion. Most people don't realize that quite a lot of work goes into preparing a book, CD, DVD, etc. for the library shelf. For one book, the process can take about 20 minutes, total, sometimes longer if original or record-import cataloging is required. When you are trying to get nearly 2,000 items shelf-ready, that is a lot of time spent on processing. One book alone has to be stamped with an ownership stamp, bar coded, spine-labeled, covered or taped and cataloged. (I left security gates and tattle tape for later.) We set up several stations, had one or two people on hand to teach the process at each station, Kym baked cinnamon rolls, and we had coffee and orange juice to energize everyone. I was amazed at the turnout and the speed with which we went through the books! Lonsdale was doggedly determined to support its library in any way it could, and so over 100 people came out on two different Saturdays to help. Yes, I will admit that a handful of books accidentally got covered upside down, (their jackets were inverted), but, still, what a feat! Boxes of books moved from the waiting to be processed pile to the shelf-ready pile in two mornings! What I thought would take all day, Lonsdale turned out in 3 or 4 hours both times. Looking back, I think that was the first time that I felt that I really had a shot at pulling this thing off. The love and appreciation I felt -- and still feel -- for the fabulous Lonsdale community support made me feel buoyant! Also, just having a large number of people in the space that was soon to be the library -- the same space in which I had spent so much time working solitary as an oyster (nod to Charles Dickens) -- was heartening.
Along about the first week of December, I called the company who was supposed to be fabricating the shelving and furniture. I got the contact's voicemail, so left a message explaining who I was and requesting that he call me back to discuss an installation date. Seven unreturned phone calls later, I knew I had a BIG problem. I went to the city administrator and told him the situation. He was reluctant to agree to my plan to convene the board in order to cancel the contract, but in the end, he saw it my way because that is exactly what we had to do. I won't bore you with those stressful and exhausting details, but we had to take some legal action to recover our deposit and I had to find someone else to build the shelving and right now, thank you very much. Fortunately, a second bid had been submitted by DEMCO, so I didn't have to start the process completely over from scratch because it was by then mid-December and the library was supposed to be opening just after the first of the year. At this point in the process, I got hit by a bad case of shingles due to the monstrous stress I was under. My private mantra became, "It's only severe pain. I can still do this." What can I tell you? I was determined not to fail. The idea that my nightmare of ignominy could come true spurred a dogged determination within me.
I called DEMCO's front office and they patched me through to Michael Schmidt, the rep who had come out, worked up an estimate and submitted a bid before I was hired. Michael was on the road, so I was transferred to his cell phone. I barely had time to give him my name when we were suddenly cut off. Drat. I hadn't gotten his direct number, so I was going to have to call back and be patched through again. Just as I was reaching to pick the phone back up to redial, it rang. Michael had called his office and gotten my number from them so that he could return my call! We talked over my situation and right away, Michael was reassuring. He would honor the estimate he had provided months ago, even though it was way beyond the expiry date, and yes he could come meet with me right away and yes, he had a manufacturer who was currently idle due to the time of year and he thought it very likely that they could build and install my new shelving in 6 weeks time, total. I could not believe my extraordinary good fortune and this man and his company's inordinate helpfulness. I had to take a beat to marvel at the ease with which my shelving and furniture problems were being solved.
Michael and I tweaked the shelving arrangement a bit -- no thought had been given to periodical shelving or slatwall end caps and there were a couple of weird layout choices that needed to be fixed. He took it all in stride, changing and adding and upgrading until I had everything just like I wanted it and he did it all at no additional charge. In what seemed like no time, the shelving was built, delivered and installed, the last few books were placed artfully on the shelves and we were ready for our soft opening. The fabulous Michael Scott (now the Iowa State Librarian) and the exceptional Jonya Pacey were on hand from SELCO to aid and abet and, wonder of wonders, we opened a fully functional library on the auspicious day of March 2, 2010 -- the birthday of none other than children's picture book author Theodore Seuss Geisel, aka, Dr. Seuss. I could finally begin to breathe more easily.
Our Grand Opening was set for April 10, 2010. The entire town was invited along with several important dignitaries and big plans had been made. Food, cakes, drinks, games, a magic show, the whole nine yards, and then some. And then tragedy struck my family the Saturday evening a week before the opening -- my step-father died suddenly and unexpectedly. For me, family always comes first, so I rushed to my mother's home in Atlanta to help her bear the grief and burden of orchestrating funeral arrangements for her second husband.
After so many delays and so much work, it was not an option to push the library grand opening back yet again. I entrusted everything to the capable hands of Kym El-wailli, Deanna Jones, Kristy Hegberg, the wonderful Shaver family and the library board and I went to mourn with my family. I returned the day before the main event to find everything well in hand and ready for a celebration. The jubilant Lonsdale Public Library Grand Opening was an extremely gratifying culmination of months of toil and stress. I felt like I had been snatched up by a tornado in November and flung wildly around in a phantasmagorical storm, then gently returned to Earth as the storm finally spun itself out in April. My nightmares began to taper off and finally stopped altogether. I had done it! I had birthed a library!!! After all that, I can tell you one thing for sure. It's proper name may be Lonsdale Public Library, but it will always be MY library.
