Crook County Library staff lands statewide accolades
Oregon Library Association awarded the local staff its 2023 Librarian of the Year and Library Employee of the Year award
Crook County Library staff was recently honored with three statewide awards for their work during a challenging and contentious previous year.
The Oregon Library Association (OLA) awarded the local staff its 2023 Librarian of the Year and Library Employee of the Year award, and Teen Librarian Katie Fischer was given Oregon Young Adult Network’s You’re Excellent Award.
“It’s a big honor,” said Assistant Library Director Sean Briscoe.
In a media release announcement, OLA stated that 2022 was a year of challenges to libraries and intellectual freedom throughout the country, with Oregon being no different. The state organization pointed out that many libraries faced difficult conversations around the subject of materials selection and retention, and First Amendment rights with each other, community members and beyond.
But OLA singled out Crook County Library, saying they faced demand by community members to “label children’s books that reflect the LGBTQ community and remove them from the children’s section.” OLA went on to say that staff faced accusations and were targeted on social media and attended charged board meetings as they responded to those demands.
“It was very divisive, I felt, because you recognize the fact that not everyone feels the same about certain topics, but what we were running into was people pushing their agendas on us instead of just letting us provide a service,” recalls Library Operations Manager Cindy York. “It was disheartening to see the level of – for lack of a better word – hate that was being thrown at us. And it was at a personal level in many instances. Who would have thought that your community would be so vicious in some of these interactions?”
York said it was challenging to stay positive for the library patrons who were not aware of the challenges they faced.
OLA believes the library staff handled the situation well, noting that “they remained steadfast in their commitment to upholding the principles of intellectual freedom and the rights of all community members to access library materials of their choosing.”
At a packed December library board meeting, the board voted not to change the location of the targeted books nor label them differently.
The OLA and OYAN awards both came as surprises. Nobody on staff knew they were even nominated for the OLA awards until they received an email from the Intellectual Freedom Committee notifying them of the honors. Fischer found out about her OYAN award while attending one of the organization’s professional meetings.
“I went to that not expecting (anything),” she said. “I thought I would just connect with people, talk to people from all over the state and get some free food.”
Instead, she found herself accepting an award – one that the rest of her staff knew was coming before she did.
“Apparently, they were very sneaky and found out way before me,” Fischer laughed. “Don’t know how they pulled that off – that was very impressive.”
The awards come at a time of transition and an eye toward stability and a more positive future. Amidst all the controversy late in 2022, April Witteveen resigned from executive director post to take a job with the Oregon State University-Cascades library in Bend. Her successor, Sarah Beeler was hired early last month.
“I was really proud of them when I showed up, because they stepped up to the plate, stayed above the fray as much as they could and remained positive and provided excellent customer service to our people,” Beeler said.
The new director believes it will take more time to move on from what happened during the past year, but she and the rest of the staff are excited to move forward.
“This group does an outstanding job on library programs, and we want to continue the positive momentum and the good feeling that is out there with all the wonderful things this public library does provide the community,” Beeler said.
**Editor: Jason Chaney, Central Oregonian
