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08/31/2016 08:30 AMWestbrook’s Stephanie Romano has an unusual problem for a librarian: she has no time to read—that is, no time to read when she gets home from work.
“Sometimes I am so tired I just fall into bed,” she says.
That’s because she is so busy as the new library director in Chester.
An Old Saybrook native, Stephanie took over earlier this month after the retirement of longtime library head Linda Fox.
“I have some big shoes to fill,” Stephanie says.
She is still learning about the Chester library, everything from policy and procedures to meeting patrons. Everybody, she adds, has been very welcoming. Fox gave her some good advice before leaving.
“She told me not to try to do everything at once; to get to know the library first,” Stephanie says.
In the mornings Stephanie works in an office on the second floor of Chester Town Hall doing a variety of library-related tasks; in the afternoon, Stephanie is back at her desk in the library.
For those whose memories stretch back to the days of hushed whispers and reminders from the librarian to maintain quiet, today’s libraries are a very different place.
“It’s more like a community center,” Stephanie says. “No more shushers.”
Stephanie would like to see the library continue to grow as a place where residents of all ages feel comfortable meeting, chatting, reading the newspaper, and going to programs.
“This should be a place community members want to go,” she says.
She is particularly interested in developing programs for young adults, an age group, she points out, that it is hard to attract to the library.
One program she recently added should resonate with anyone who has ever squiggled in the margins anywhere from a high school class to a business meeting: Zentangle, a drawing exercise in which people create their own designs with colored pencils.
Stephanie did not take a traditional path to becoming a librarian. For 12 years, she worked in customer service for a business in Madison, but her particular responsibilities brought her into increasing contact with the corporate librarian. That, in turn, led to her own decision to study library science.
She started with courses at Middlesex Community College, then transferred to Southern Connecticut State University. It took her seven years to get her bachelor’s degree in library science and, after taking a break from school, she next earned a master’s degree, also in library science, from Kent State University through an online program.
She says that online study is not an anonymous process, nor a faceless one. Students submit biographies and pictures so other classmates know who they are and as they go through many classes together, they come to know one another if only at a distance. The main ingredient for success in an online program, Stephanie observes, is the same as the ingredient for success in any program: discipline.
“You have to be able to sit at the computer for three or four hours,” she says, adding that she did not regret the time. “It was my goal. This was what I wanted.”
As she was nearing the end of the work for her master’s degree in 2015, her longtime companion died of pancreatic cancer.
“One thing he said to me was how important it was that I finish,” she recalls.
Before coming to Chester, Stephanie was the access services manager at the Phoebe Griffin Noyes Library in Old Lyme for nine years, where her varied responsibilities included overseeing both volunteers and the circulation staff as researching possible program presenters and evaluating and weeding the library’s collection. At Old Lyme, she says, if a book had not been checked out for five years, it was a candidate for weeding out. At Chester, given the more limited space, that time is usually three years. But the rule is not hard and fast.
“It always depends on the author and the title; whether it is a classic,” Stephanie says.
When it comes to her own time, Stephanie is a Food Network fan and a longtime baker. Cookies are her favorites to bake because she can do several different batters and bake them at the same time. She doesn’t have a problem about eating her creations. She tastes the cookies, but says that for snacking, she likes salty things, identifying chips and dips as her downfall.
There is a cookie eater in Stephanie’s family, though, her four-year-old grandson Ryder. In terms of literary tastes, Ryder favors one of the classics of childhood: Curious George.
Stephanie, who now lives in Westbrook, once spent time in California some years ago, but she is glad she moved back to Connecticut.
“My network is here, my family. I love the shoreline,” she says. “Something always draws you back.”