Library director plans new services

When Eileen Simmons applied to head Everett’s two-branch library system, she received a key reference: one from the city’s longest running library director.

“She is a good librarian, in a technical sense. She has a good background, sense of humor and is a good person,” said Library Director Mark Nesse, who announced that he would retire February after 30 years with the city.

The five-member library board of trustees unanimously picked Simmons over 14 other applicants from around the country and Canada earlier this month.

The final appointment came after two hours of deliberations on three finalists.

“She had a very good grasp about what a library should be,” said Ron Jacobson, president of the library board.

Simmons’ ideas on the evolving role of technology in libraries, and her efforts to reach out to residents who don’t speak English, gave her an edge, Jacobson said. Nesse’s approval and Simmons’ knowledge of the library and the community also helped, he said.

The assistant director since 1998, Simmons helped build the library’s foreign language collection, which includes Russian, Vietnamese and Spanish books.

She has also been a prolific grant writer, bringing in nearly $160,000 in state funds for a wireless laptop lab, desktop computers, an Everett Massacre Web site and other library improvements.

She said she hopes to evaluate the use of self-checkout stations and downloadable e-books in the coming months.

She will also look at increasing services at the Evergreen Branch in south Everett, which is awaiting a 4,000-square-foot expansion.

For every man, woman and child in Everett, the city spends about $46 on library services each year.

Overall, it has 43 full-time employees and a proposed 2007 budget of $4.6 million.

Simmons said it is important for the library to look at ways to reach beyond its walls to increase participation.

“We have a variety of roles,” Simmons said.

Simmons envisions the library having something to serve everyone, including early literacy programs and outreach services that deliver books and movies to senior centers and nursing homes.

Before moving to Everett, she held a number of library positions in Wichita, Kan.; in Freemont, Mich.; at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Ind.; and in Greencastle, Ind.

She also took a few breaks from full-time library work, once to complete her master’s degree in library science at the University of Indiana, Bloomington, and another time to live in Sierra Leone with her husband, Roger Berger, a college English professor who taught in the western African country as a Fulbright Scholar.

Simmons started her library career working in a bookmobile in Greencastle, a small town about an hour’s drive southwest of Indianapolis.

Reflecting on the Everett Library, Simmons said she thinks it strikes a nice balance between big-city and small-town libraries: big enough to have a depth of collections, but small enough to adapt to change.

Unlike other city department heads – which are appointed by the mayor – library directors are appointed by the library board in an effort to buffer the position from political influences.

It’s an idea she embraces.

“A good library should have enough books to offend everyone,” she said.

Reporter David Chircop: 425-339-3429 or dchircop@heraldnet.com.

New library director

Eileen Simmons

Age: 56

Education: Master’s in library science at Indiana University in Bloomington, Ind. Bachelor’s in art at DePauw University in Greencastle, Ind.

Salary: $100,836

Past library directors

Head librarians and directors of the Everett Public Library, 1898-2006:

* Alice McFarland (later Alive Duryee), April 1898 to April 1900.

* Gretchen Hathaway, April 1900 to May 1907.