The Rebecca Donnelly Welcome Interview.

As I mentioned in a previous post, we have a few new directors in our system this summer. Recently, I had a chance to electronically sit down with Rebecca Donnelly and chat about her new gig as Norwood Public Library's new director.

Angela: We'll start simple. First question: Who are you?

Rebecca: Are you saying I'm not a complicated and interesting person? Because it's true.

I'm a former children's librarian, although I'm ambivalent about putting it that way. I've worked in circulation, but I also did children's programming, and now that I'm a director, I'm still doing children's collection development, programming, and outreach. But I spent six years as in the Youth Services department at the main branch of Rio Rancho Public Library in Rio Rancho, NM, and that's where I really learned about children's services. Who else am I, besides a librarian? Uh...

Angela: Well, shoot. My next question was going to be 'Where did you come from?' but you kind of covered it with the New Mexico background. 


Rebecca: Before I moved to New Mexico, I lived in Florida for five years, which is where I got my start volunteering and working in libraries. I volunteered to do preschool storytimes at the Air Force base library where we were posted, and when a job opened up in the circulation department, I sneaked right in. Before Florida, we were in California, where I grew up and where I spent a lot of time at my local library. In fact, I just saw yesterday that Maggie Stiefvater was doing an event at my hometown library--the fancy new one, not the old Carnegie building I used to hang out in. Watching your former libraries grow and change is kind of like hearing that your old friends from high school are actually still alive and kicking without your daily support and intervention. How is it possible?

Rebecca Donnelly leads a parachute activity.

Angela: One of my old libraries had a security guard who looked like a latter day Omar Sharif, and it STILL throws me off that he's not there anymore. It's been ten years.

But moving right along. Florida, New Mexico, California. How'd you hold up in the North Country this past winter? (Which was, by all accounts, a doozy, even by local standards.)

Rebecca: I picked my six favorite sweaters and didn't take them off until June. It was a rough introduction to the North Country, but winter only happens once, right? It's all kayaks and apple- picking after this?

Angela: Absolutely. That's all it is. Go ahead and chuck those sweaters. Serving as the interim director at Norwood was your first gig as director, right?

Rebecca: Yes. I have briefly been a supervisor before, but this is my first directorship.

Angela: Any surprises?

Rebecca: It's been pretty smooth so far. I've been very gratified to see how happy everyone seems to be that I'm on board permanently. I'm starting slowly--a little shifting to use the space better, a little magnetic paint for fun, and I plan to start making some more connections in the community soon. I haven't had any real surprises except that it doesn't rain chocolate drops on me like I thought it would.

Angela: Well, not in your first year. Last question - what are you reading?

Rebecca: Gone-Away Lake by Elizabeth Enright. It's a classic Newbery Honor book that has rightfully been reissued. Two cousins discover an elderly brother and sister living in a deserted summer colony, and their reaction to the quaintness of the relics of late 19th century life is very much what a modern reader might think of the 1950s, and yet the narrative is so charming and energetic that you don't feel you're reading something almost sixty years old.

Angela: I will check it out. Thanks for talking with The Frozen Librarian, Rebecca!