RSS 2.0 FeedSeptember 23, 2010, Bellmore Life
Meet Bellmore’s new library director
Former Assistant Director of the Merrick Library is now the head of the Bellmore Library.
Maureen Garvey started her new role as director of the Bellmore Memorial Library on September 1. She came from the Merrick Library, where she had been the assistant director for several years. Ms. Garvey was born and raised in Merrick, and graduated from St. John’s University.
She started her career in libraries as a part-time circulation clerk at the Norwalk Public Library, and continued in circulation services in Merrick, becoming the head of circulation and technical processing, before earning her Master’s degree in Library and Information Science from Queens College. As a teen working part time at the Merrick Library, Maureen started library’s Teen Advisory Group (TAG). She was a founding member of the Nassau Library System’s Technology Committee, and she continues to be a member of the Long Island Reads Committee. Maureen also served as the liaison between the Friends of the Merrick Library and the Historical Society of the Merricks, as well as leading the very popular Mystery Lover’s Book Club at the Merrick Library. Bellmore Life spent a few minutes getting to know Ms. Garvey.
Q: What is your vision for the Bellmore library, what is your goal? A: My vision here is to retain the warm, cozy atmosphere partly related to the small building, and to expand on our ability to provide services, programs and material to the public, all working from the base of a warm and friendly library. [There is no plan to expand the library building.] I also want this library to be a focal point as community center, to offer something for everyone, and to serve every citizen that wants or needs those services.
Q: Expand on what programs and services, for instance? A: We offer a great story time for children, and the staff are terrific. There are things the librarian there wants to expand and do, and I’m with her. We will do more for the local book clubs for adults, and expand on a mystery book club for teens. On our web site at present we offer live homework help from 2-9 p.m., tudor desk help and tumble books, a database that will read to your children at night and turn the page. Our free computer programs are very well attended, as are our concerts. We will also launch a new website that will expand on these 24-hour programs by making the site more interactive, functional, more accessible and more navigatible.
Q: Reports suggest more people are flocking to libraries than ever before. Have you seen this, and why is this so? A: Yes, there has been an increase in people to the library. A lot of middle management people have lost their jobs. We have job and information databases that can help them search for work. We also give people one-on-one e-mail training because many jobs today require you to apply online, and we can teach them how to attach a file, for example. But the last five years has also seen significant growth changes that include circulation being up, people coming in more and attendance in programs being up. Certainly, we can attribute it to the economy, but there are also more free services, such as DVDs, CDs, video games, audio books and large print books, and also downloadable e-books on our website. In the future, even more will be downloadable. The library card holder will be able to get the downloadable video or music they want, for example.
Q: Speaking of the future, in the face of the digital age, will there still be an audience for paper documents, for novels, nonfiction and magazines? A: I think so. There has been a large increase in the large-type collection of books because the demographic in Bellmore is maturing. People still want books. And parents still want story times and picture books for their children. Tumble books are great, but parents don’t want their children sitting in front of a computer screen all day. Children’s books of today have wonderful content and terrific illustrations. And then there are the graphic novels, compelling stories presented in illustration form to read more like comic books than narrative. Teen and young adult fiction has grown tremendously over the last five years. Books will never go away. While teens and adults will certainly read more online, the desire for a book will never go away. As I said earlier, we will continue to expand on our book clubs because there is interest in them, and we can help those who have bookclubs at home to enhance their experience.
Q: In this digital age, how do you look at a budget and determine whether documents and books are, or digital content is, more important? A: That is a balancing act, there is no question. Directors do have an issue with this, in that the public sees a budget and they want to see big book purchases. The fact is that reference materials, the most expensive books we buy, will diminish in purchase because that information is in the new databases, and you can’t afford both. Databases are available 24 hours, seven days a week. A book on a reference shelf is not even available for a patron to take home. So,we will cut back on reference books because we can get the same information on the database. Still, the public wants to see a large expenditure on books, so we have to educate the public that we are still buying as much information, if not more, than before, it’s justa different container, a different format, a digital format. When we buy informatoin, we buy it from the Nassau Library consortium at consortium prices, and when we look at the thousands of databases out there we pick the best ones for the content we want. On the other hand, we are buying more fiction and nonfiction books than we ever have.
Q: Is the library a place for the exchange of cultural ideas, as community center? A: Yes, very much so. The library should be a marketplace of ideas where people are encouraged to come and listen to speakers, and discuss things. The library is not a quiet place, because people are always talking. I hope this library creates more conversation in the future. In doing so, I would have to install quiet places to study, or read. We have room for all sorts of meetings, such as the Long Island songwriters. We have art shows here and the Nassau Poets meet here. We’re starting a Marjon club, as well. But we also support local businesses, and the library has spoken before the Chamber of Commerce. A good library will naturally attract people, and young people with young children want to know there is a library available. In this sense, a good library supports business in town, and there is such a good business community in Bellmore.
Q: What's your opinion of e-kindle [electronic books by Amazon.com]? A: I like the Nook and the Sony e-reader, but the Kindle does not play well with libraries. If you buy Kindle, you can only purchase books from Amazon, they’re downloadable only onto Kindle, you can’t share the books on them with anyone else who has a Kindle, you have to give them the whole Kindle hardware device. Amazon will also not make any agreements with public libraries to make Amazon e-books available to the public through a library. On the other hand, our books our downloadable free onto iPad, or other e-readers, 24-hours a day, seven days a week.
Q: Do you support smaller, independent presses over media conglomerates? A: In short, yes, and we do support our local authors and poets, too. Smaller presses have more interesting titles you may not find elsewhere. For example, E.K. Rawling’s independent books just happened to be on the top of a pile, rather than at the bottom, and that’s how Harry Potter was discovered. We look at library journals, which are independently run, to see all the books that are out there, and we do look at them. We will also purchase smaller books at the request of a customer who would like to read that title. Although it does have to meet a certain criteria, of course. There has to be some review of the book.
Q: Reference librarian Pat Glieberman helped with a Book-Club-in-a-Bag Program with Merrick Library. Will you keep it? A: That’s a perfect example of libraries working together for young adult programs, and it is a program shared by the four libraries in the Central High School District. I was a teen librarian at the time when we began working on it, and it really is a nice program. It’s important that libraries work together to share resources, because if we don’t have a book, we can call over to another library and get that book if our member wants it.
Q: Anything else you’d like to tell the Bellmmore community? A: I hope that people who use the library will see things they like, and like the things they see, as we slowly add things and change things around a bit. We hope that people who haven’t used the library will come in and see what is available for them, and realize we have something they didn’t know we had that can enhance their lives, either for information reasons or for leisure activity. My hope is that we will truly help to serve the entire community. So do come in and meet with me, I’d like to get to know you all. And you can e-mail me at mgarvey@bellmorelibrary.org. I’d like to hear from you.
