By Jennifer Eisenbart
Editor
Joe Davies has had just a little bit more than a week to settle into his new job.
“I’m pretty brand-new,” said Davies, who started as the Burlington Public Library’s new director last week, replacing long-time director Gayle Falk, who retired last fall.
Davies is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee with graduate degree in library science. He did undergraduate work at the University of St. Francis in Joliet, Ill., where he earned a Bachelor of the Arts degree in history. He also has a master’s degree from UWM in history.
He decided to go into library science because his first real job was in a library.
“I was a page, shelving books,” Davies said of the job he held in when he was 17 in 2000. He then took a job as a telephone reference clerk at the same library in Joliet. He still harbored hopes of becoming a history professor – having started his master’s degree by then – but knew it would be difficult to pursue a PhD in history.
“I missed working with people,” he said, adding that he thinks of a library as a community space – not just about books, but programming and people.
One of the challenges and joys of working in library science, he said, is becoming an instant expert in a topic to help someone out who is searching for material.
“You can kind of immerse yourself in something you’ve never thought about before,” he said. “And find yourself viewing a world in a new way.”
He inherits a library that is a work in progress. The current location is crowded, and the City of Burlington has been considering the future of the current library. That works in conjunction with expanded programing, Davies said, which is becoming more popular.
Davies added that the library also hopes to update its website, and expand digital offerings.
“We do have a lot of great stuff through the state,” he said. “We’d like to be able to do more of that, and generally update the collection. You want to have good-looking copy.
“The reason for having open stacks is so you can peruse,” Davies added. “The trick is making sure that all the stuff on the shelves looks nice.”
With a library a place for people during many colder months of the year, Davies added that the building should be a destination.
“You can just be here because there’s a lot of cool stuff here,” Davies said.
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