Library as Garden

I love to garden. Since becoming your library director I have thought of the library as a garden needing to be tended; to be tilled, planted, mulched, watered, weeded and harvested.  It is the unique combination of fixed elements - the seeds and soil, variable elements - the amount of sunlight and water and certain temperatures, and my own effort and attention.  In other words, I can only control some of the variables that lead to the end result.
Either way productivity is a measure of success. But I think I may learn more from my failures. Some seeds don't sprout. Sometimes it is difficult to weed with without damaging the seedlings. Some plants are harmed by predators or challenged by weather conditions.  Sometimes, happily, there is an astonishing abundance of vegetables, fruits, and flowers.
Every year is another opportunity to tweak the design and plant something new. I try to balance stable crops with my experiments. I know how quickly conditions can change. We need to be able to survive the lean times and reserve part of each harvest to tide us over.
This year’s garden has library reopening at 10 am Monday through Saturday. There is a new staffing structure: Kim Tolson, Children’s Services Librarian with Veronique Chechile and Bernadette Foley assisting; Erica Cote, ‘Tween and Teen Services Librarian; Mare Parker-O’Toole, Adult Services Librarian, Webmistress, and Technologist; Stef Aucoin Advisory Services and Local History Librarian;  and Matt Costanza, Member Services Supervisor with Sandy Dobday, Terri Wickham and Susan Alison assisting.  Behind the scenes are Heather O’Neil, Technical Services Supervisor, several high school pages, and many, many volunteers. The collections are being re-barcoded to conform to state-wide delivery standards, and tagged and encoded with RFID technology for more efficient check-in and out. Also, an additional self-check station will be installed in the Children’s Room, thanks to the generosity of The Friends of the Library.
Future gardening experiments may include:  an enhanced Dewey rearrangement for increased browse-ability and discoverability in nonfiction; lower, mobile shelving for more flexibility and more comfortable feeling stacks; Medfield Reads Poetry programs for community engagement; a makerspace for participatory, peer-to-peer learning; a grant for improved advisory services; genre labeling for enhanced fiction navigation; and outdoor tables and chairs with wifi for more places to work and meet.
Garden parties are the best. For the library it is our gala. Whether we are celebrating change, honoring our benefactors, cementing our cultural partnerships, or greening Medfield, it is all about the community garden of which we are a part.

-Deborah W. Kelsey