New Glenwood Public Library Director Hoping To Broaden Community Outreach

The Glenwood Public Library has a new director.

Autumn Yosten, the library associate at West Elementary School the past eight years, was recently hired by the Glenwood Library Board Of Directors to replace Tara Painter, who left the position last spring to become the director of the Harlan Public Library.

Yosten has a bachelor’s degree in theater from Creighton University and a master’s degree in theater from the University of Houston. Earlier this year, she finished online work on an elementary education degree and teaching license from Western Governor’s University.

Changes in state requirements for teacher librarians made the Glenwood Public Library Director job attractive to Yosten.

“The State of Iowa recently reorganized the requirements for teacher librarians in public schools,” she noted. “It used to be a master’s degree in MLS (Library Science) and now they’ve removed the master’s requirement and added that a public library employee could have a pathway to teacher librarianship. I was supposed to start a master’s school librarianship this fall. This job became available and I figured it would be a good way to get some more experience while taking the heat off having to get my master’s degree super, super fast. So, I deferred my master’s for right now and will pick it up at a slower pace because I think at some point, I would probably like to go back to the classroom, but maybe I don’t. Maybe I love this and I retire here.”

Yosten has been on the job since Sept. 15 and her first impressions of the Glenwood Public Library are positive.

“I think the strength is very much in the offerings that it has for the community,” she said. “For the size of space and the size of community we serve, we have a very diverse set of offerings.”

Specifically, Yosten mentioned the library’s participation in Libby, an online reading program through a consortium of libraries from across the state.

“Glenwood has opted into a consortium that gives us access to materials purchased by the state and also to materials purchased by other members of the consortium,” said Yosten.

Services for homebound patrons, “engaging space” in the children’s area of the library and the success of the summer reading program have also caught the new director’s attention.

“We have a really good staff that has a wide variety of backgrounds and they each bring a unique skill set to their jobs,” Yosten said.

Yosten added that one of her priorities is broadening the library’s outreach through participation in community events like Scarecrow Day, Cultivate Community and the weekly farmer’s market. She also wants to reinstate the popular Spine Crackers program and begin a Silent Book Club.

“You go to a place and you read quietly for an hour,” she said of the Silent Book Club. “It doesn’t matter what you brought, what you’re reading, you get a dedicated hour to yourself.”

She envisions the Silent Book Club being hosted by the library but taking place at businesses and establishments throughout the community.

Yosten pointed out that despite a reduction in hours, necessitated by a cut in funding from the city, the library has maintained most of its programs and services. The programs include the summer reading program, history book club and “Story Time.”

“We provide internet service, fax service and technology services that people might have to drive  out of town for,” she said. “I think it (library) serves as a really good touch point for a variety of demographics. You’ve got a really important role to play in services that are hard to come by in rural Iowa.”

Hours of operation at the library are Monday from 10 a.m. – 7 p.m., Tuesday to Friday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Saturday from 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.