Photo by Annie DrabickyApril 8–14 is National Library Week, so Community Impact Newspaper wanted to take some time to get to know the public library directors in San Marcos, Buda and Kyle. The women talked about getting to know the people in their community through the library, and each talked about the challenge of funding. They also discussed what led them to become librarians and some of the books that have influenced them in their reading careers. Their interviews are condensed below.
Stephanie Langenkamp, San Marcos Public Library
What made you decide to become a librarian?
I used the library a lot as a child, and one of my friends' mother's went to school to become a librarian, so I became aware that that was something that you could study. That sort of opened my eyes to it. When I went to college, I was one of those students that doesn't dig very deeply into anything. I loved it all, but not too much. I figured out that I could go to library school. That was something that suited me really well.
What are some of the books that have been most important or influential to you?
Well, I'm a big "Alice in Wonderland" fan. I started that when I was pretty young. That's probably the book that I identify most with. Not that I'm Alice or anything, but I understand it, I love the humor in it, I love the puzzles in it and that sort of thing.
What are you reading right now?
I've been reading a really interesting book about swimming and the swimming adventures of people like [poets] Lord Byron and Percy Shelley. I didn't know that Lord Byron swam so much. And, of course, Shelley drowned; he wasn't a great swimmer. It's called "The Swimmer as Hero" [by Charles Sprawson], and it's made me want to go read their biographies. These were really outlandish people that lived large in every way.
What has been the best part about being a librarian and running a library?
You can be engaged with 25 different topics of study in one day, maybe sometimes even in one hour. It's kind of fun because you don't have to know anything too deeply, but you can know a little about a lot. That's kind of my style.
The other thing that's fun about the library is all the kinds of people. It starts with the little bitty kids coming in for story time, and their moms and then the school-age kids that are really starting to learn to read and latching onto and loving it. All the way to the old folks, this is one of their main lifelines. So you really get to deal with everybody. I love that. We have a great staff here, too. The people that come to libraries are, I think, a pretty awesome bunch of people. The books, let's face it, are fascinating. What happens in a library is you get these people who want to work in a library because of those things.
What are some of the more challenging aspects?
Funding is always a challenge. There's always this sort of sense that, 'Well, the library, they're nice over there. They won't make too many waves.' There's sort of a sense that as a quality-of-life service, that maybe it can wait. It's not that they don't think it's important, but maybe it can wait another year. So there is that challenge.
It's a building that you have to maintain. You're maintaining a service, you're maintaining a collection, but you also have to maintain a building and a place, and so you want it to be really nice. I want people to come into this place and to feel really comfortable and really at home, and I think people really, really do.
Melinda Hodges, Buda Public Library
What made you decide to become a librarian?
I decided I was going to be a librarian when I was 6 years old. Just going in to the library and [thinking], 'Yep, this is the place.' Then after I got my bachelor's degree and found out maybe public schools [weren't] exactly where I fit, fortunately there was a job open here. After I was here about a year or two, I [thought], 'Yep. This is it. I'm going to do this.' And I got the master's [degree].
What are some of the books that have been most important or influential to you?
That one's hard. "The Lord of the Rings" [was] influential, that and "The Hobbit." It's just amazing to see how people can just create whole new worlds and settings and languages and just suck you in.
What are you reading right now?
I just finished Stephen King's "The Gunslinger," the first in the Dark Tower series, and I'm hoping I can get my hands on the second one in that series and keep going. It's completely different from anything that I've read of his before. He wants it to be his magnum opus, this huge, epic series. I have several friends who are just absolutely smitten with it, so I thought I'd give it a try.
What has been the best part about being a librarian and running a library?
I just like getting to meet all the people in the community and work with all the different age groups. It's just nice to get to give them a hand with whatever they're working on or be able to suggest something.
What are some of the more challenging aspects?
I guess the most challenging is, sometimes at different governmental levels—not so much local—there's not as much support for libraries and education as you would hope for. [In] the state budget this year, $4 billion [was cut] out of public education, a 64 percent cut for the Texas State Library and Archives Commission. And you know they have to cut, but it's just so important for the future that people have this education and have this access to these resources.
Connie Brooks, Kyle Public Library
What made you decide to become a librarian?
Well, out of college, I took a job at the Harry Ransom Center at UT as a typist in the manuscripts department. I loved it, I just loved it. And that was that. I just never worked anywhere besides a library after that.
What are some of the books that have been most important or influential to you?
What I find is that I always get the right book for whatever I'm facing at the time. It seems like if I'm having a situation that I'm having to deal with, it seems that the right book comes along to help me deal with it.
What are you reading right now?
One of the books that I finished recently that I really quite liked, we read in our book group, which is "The Paris Wife," by Paula McLain. It's about Ernest Hemingway's first wife. I thought, 'How could this possibly be interesting?' but it was on the bestseller list for months, and then I read it and I understood.
What has been the best part about being a librarian and running a library?
I don't know if it's running the library or just being in the library, but I love getting to see all the little kids coming in for story time. And I love that all the kids who come here are here because they want to be here, because they want to read the books or use the computers. I love that we're here for adults who need Internet access. It's just such a happy place. It's a joy to come to work.
What are some of the more challenging aspects?
Money is always a challenge, because we have such dreams. We see what we want to do, and the only thing in our way is the money. We are fortunate in that part of what's been holding us back is how tight our facility was, so our facility is about to become bigger [Editor's note: The library is slated to move to its new building by May. The current space is about 5,000 square feet; the new space will be about 20,000 square feet.]
