| Noreen Williams |
Our new assistant librarian, Emily Martin, just began at her position here in New Gloucester this past week. Emily comes with lots of experience both at libraries (Lewiston and Paris Public Libraries) and in a school setting (as a library tech in elementary schools in the Oxford Hills and Poland school districts).
Emily grew up in Calais and worked at the local library while in high school. She went to Central Maine Technical College and then worked a number of years in printing and design. When the printing company where she worked downsized, Emily took a job at the Poland Community School as a long-term substitute, and during that time she worked as a library technician. It was during one story time, reading to the children, that she said, “I had my aha moment and realized that this was what I wanted to do. My calling. I decided to go back to college.” Emily got her undergraduate degree in Information Library Science at the University of Maine at Augusta and has since worked in several public libraries.
Emily now lives in Paris (Maine, of course) with her family and is an avid reader of biography and historic fiction. She also loves to camp, kayak, and garden. Emily says she is very excited to work at the New Gloucester library and loves working in smaller libraries because it gives her the chance to really get to know people. In fact, her favorite parts of her work are community outreach and making connections with the people she sees. She wants to discover what they need to get on the shelf to get more readers into the library and what needs of the community the library can fulfill. She loves programming and has been involved in all sorts of community events. She is a strong advocate for children’s reading and is looking forward to working on the youth/young adults’ collection, which after the library shut down needs some attention.
Emily is certainly looking forward to meeting all of the library patrons as soon as that can safely happen. In the meantime, Emily and Lee Shaw (the new head librarian) are getting ready for the lobby service that begins on Tuesday, February 23rd (see the library website for details).
