After much serious thought and deliberation, my husband and I have come to the decision that it’s time for me to think about retirement. I’ve had a wonderful career in a field that I am absolutely passionate about, and I’ve had many opportunities to touch and change lives – I hope I have lived up to most of them. And I’ve certainly loved being here in West Baton Rouge Parish with our “small but mighty” library! But April 30 will complete 50 years of drawing a paycheck from libraries for me; that should probably be enough for anyone. I am looking at retiring effective June 1, 2017.

I feel good about what we’ve accomplished since I’ve been here. We’ve been able to upgrade and increase technology, which has offered much more to the public and allowed us to shift staff from behind-the-scenes tasks to face-to-face public service. When I arrived, we only had two positions working in public services, and one of those was vacant! We now have good staffing in the Circulation Department, an Adult Services Librarian, a Network Administrator for technology services, and improved staffing in the Youth Services area. We’ve added e-books and e-audiobooks for downloading, added Blu-rays, and expanded the DVDs and audiobooks on disks. We’ve weeded all adult fiction twice, almost all of the non-fiction, and juvenile materials are spot-weeded each summer. The collections are current and appealing. Programming continues to be exemplary, both in-house and out in the communities with funding assistance from a Parish grant each year. And we’ve done a bit of a face-lift to the Youth Services area to spruce it up.

There’s never a time when everything is finished and it’s easy to hand the reins over to someone new, but May 1 is as good a date as any. The migration to the new Polaris computer system will be complete, with our “go live” date estimated to be the end of March. Weeding of the adult non-fiction collection is nearly done. The building project will still be on hold. We probably won’t know what the State is going to do with the Inventory Tax until the session ends and the Governor signs the budget. To me, that is the single most important issue since it affects our ongoing revenue; it truly controls the future for the Library.

There is always more to do! I will always be excited by what libraries do each and every day! But I think it’s time to close this chapter of my life and start the next one.

Many, many thanks for allowing me to serve you, the people of West Baton Rouge Parish! I will always be grateful for working here. I truly appreciate the many friends I’ve come to know and the professional relationships that I have had here. I hope that they carry over to ongoing friendships in the years ahead!

Beth Vandersteen, Director

[Job vacancy is posted www.wbrpl.com/job-openings/ ]