Monday, September 16, 2024
Meredith Miller took over the Scandinavia library director position last November and has settled into the new position well, looking to build on the previous directors programs.
Miller said she is originally from Seattle and moved to Wisconsin to marry her husband, who lived in Scandinavia and worked at Krause Publications in Iola.
Miller began working at the library in March 2007, with the intention of running the summer programming, which was held at a park in the town due to the library’s much smaller building at the time.
Miller said that by the end of that first summer they broke ground on the library’s new addition.
Last November Sue Vater Olson, the previous library director, took a position as director at Sturm Memorial Library, which opened up a spot for Miller.
Miller was the assistant librarian for more than 12 years before taking on the head role.
“It made it much easier to slide into that position,” she said. “Being really familiar with the library and familiar with our residents has been a great help.”
Miller said the most challenging aspect of her new position is not having enough hands to help out with the amount of programming she would like to do. Some of that was alleviated with the hiring of someone who will take over children’s programming.
“We’re working on getting somebody in and trained up who can help us start offering more of the young adult and adult programming,” she said. “We’re hopefully going to be offering a much fuller slate of programs for our residents next year.”
Programs
One of the programs that Miller runs year round is a monthly book group, where a book is chosen, from a variety of genre’s, and on the fourth Tuesday of the month the group gets together to discuss it.
Miller said the group has tripled in the last year.
“They can continue reading their own preferred stuff all the time, but this gets them at least a little taste of whatever else is out there.
Sometimes they end up finding an author or a genre that they hadn’t known about that they really end up falling in love with,” Miller said. “So they really love being able to broaden their scope, as far as what they’re reading.”
Miller said her favorite genre for reading is fantasy and science fiction, which she tries to slip into the book club reading list at least once a year.
Another program is the Crafting Bee, which started in 2011. It is a crafting group that runs on Thursdays from 10 a.m. until noon.
In this group people bring in a craft they have been working on, anything from crocheting to adult coloring books, and the group converses while crafting.
As far as children’s programs they continue to offer Story Time through the summer months, while also planning activities for when students have off during the school year.
There is also the Story Walk, which is held in Jorgens Park Reserve, on the north shore of Silver Lake.
This gives families an opportunity to take the less than half mile walk. Along the trail are pages from a picture book and they can follow a story.
This program began in 2016 and Miller said it continues to be popular in the community.
Miller said there is also a program coming up in October that will allow children to make toys for cats and dogs housed in the Waupaca Humane Society.
Miller said she is hoping to bring back Dungeons and Dragons as a weekly program, which was discontinued with Covid in 2020.
She also hopes to start informational technology programs where people can learn about BadgerLink, Libby and NoveList, among many computer programs offered through InfoSoup.
These programs have a wide range of capabilities, Miller said, and she plans to show people all that the library systems have to offer.
To find out about dates and times of programs go to Facebook and like Scandinavia Public Library.
