New director says he’s ‘up for the challenge’
By Tracy Ouellette
SLN Staff
When Jeff Gartman applied for the director position at the East Troy Lions Public Library, he said he was tired of “living the rat race” working in Chicago and community long hours every day from St. Charles, Ill.
“I thought this would be a marvelous challenge,” he said. “A library is a huge resource in the community – I like to say it’s the ‘heart of the community.’ I’m looking forward to seeing what I can bring to this. I’m up for the challenge.”
Gartman, 60, has spent his 24-year librarian career working in specialty libraries such as his most recent job as the interim director of the American Dental Association Library in Chicago. He worked there for the past 17 years and was the interim director there for the last three years.
“My wife (Lisa) and I moved to East Troy a couple of weeks ago and everybody’s been so welcoming,” he said. “People have been dropping by the library just to introduce themselves and say ‘Hi.’ It’s been so nice.
“I brought my wife to the Civil War thing last weekend and she even said, after we left, how nice everyone was and how welcoming. I guess we’re not used to that,” he said.
Gartman said he’s been settling into the new role and is excited at the prospect of helping the library grow.
“I want to put together a marketing plan for the library,” he said. “I want to up the usage everywhere we can.”
Gartman acknowledged space is the biggest issue at the library. The community has simply outgrown the small building, which is a little more than 5,000 square feet.
“We just don’t have enough room,” he said. “This building is bursting at the seams.”
The library board has been working on the issue, progressing from last year’s needs assessment to the point where some discussion is happening about where to go next – add on, build new or purchase a new facility.
“I want to be part of that decision making process,” Gartman said. “They did a great job with the needs assessment. I encourage everyone to read it. It really shows why we need to grow. People in the community are going elsewhere for many of their library needs.”
Even with the limited space, Gartman said one of the things that struck him from the very first week in his new role, was the number of people using the library and checking out books regularly.
“It amazes me how many people come in, check out a few books and are back two days later because they’ve read them and need more,” he said. “It’s good to see that kind of usage.”
He said the programming at the library has kept up with the times with classes in Makerspace and other hands-on activities along with traditional offerings.
“I’m going to be sitting in on some of the Makerspace classes,” he said. “I’m looking forward to that. I don’t have a lot of experience with it, so this will be a great way to learn.”
Gartman said he has also been “very impressed” with the staff at the library and the patron service they engage in on a daily basis.
“It’s so very important we have that marvelous service,” he said. “I’m looking forward to working with them on marketing the library and expanding our services.”
Gartman said he believed the reason the board hired him was because they wanted “a different pair of eyes” on the issues.
“My plan is to review everything and work with the staff for a while before making any big decisions,” he said. “I’m very pleased with the programing we have in place here and I would like to add some new things.”
One of those new programs he would like to see put in place is an adult summer reading program to go along with the annual children’s summer reading program.
“My sister, who’s a librarian in Sheboygan, said she added that to her programing and they found it brought even more children into the summer reading program along with the adults. So it became a family thing. I’d like to have that in place by next summer,” he said.
And that seems to be the new director’s ultimate goal – attract as many people, of all ages, to the library as possible.
