Library is her favorite place
By Holly Neumann
Shannon Dane is the Iola Village Library’s new children’s librarian.
She replaces Lisa Bauer, who is retiring.
“Lisa has done such a wonderful job and cannot be replaced,” Dane said. “I only hope to be able to walk in her footsteps and build on all the hard work that she has put in over the years. I’m a different person, so there may be differences in our styles, but she has laid a wonderful path for me to walk.”
The library has always been Dane’s favorite place.
“Having the opportunity to work where I play will help me to fulfill the goal of, ‘Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life,’” she said.
Dane is originally from New Jersey, but moved to Colorado in 1999, where she met and married her husband, Dan. They moved to Iola in 2016 and have a son, Xander, an eighth-grader at Iola-Scandinavia Middle School.
Books and reading have always been a part of Dane’s life.
“There is something wonderful about being able to lose myself in the pages of a really good book,” she said. “Of course, my taste has changed throughout my life. Some of my favorite authors through the years have been Judy Blume and Shel Silverstein to Dean Koontz, Ann Rice and Robert R. McCammon to Nelson Demille, James Patterson and Camilla Lackberg. Put a book in my hands that is set in Ireland or Scotland and I am happy.”
Dane said she is a good fit for the library.
“Throughout the past 10 years, I’ve worked as an administrator for a PK-8 school in Colorado and then as a library associate for Portage County libraries,” she said. “I love working with children to inspire a love of reading by sharing fun books and songs. Don’t be surprised when our story times get a bit rambunctious.”
Her hope is to develop more teen and adult programs to give people opportunities to meet more of their neighbors while having fun.
“Iola has become our hometown over the past six years,” Dane said. “I’m excited to be able to take on this role to be able to give back to my community. I will help to build programs that will allow everyone a place to come to relax, learn, create and forge relationships with their neighbors, old and new.”
In her spare time, Dane loves to be outside hiking or kayaking. She also loves to cook, do puzzles, knit and take classes on different crafts.