Laws leaves behind a library community center

Oscar Grady Library Director Emily Laws, under whose direction the Saukville library has become a leader in local programming, will step down at the end of the month to become director of the North Shore Library.

Laws’ resignation is effective Friday, Aug. 28. She will take over as director of the Bayside-based North Shore Library, which also serves Glendale, River Hills and Fox Point, on Monday, Aug. 31.

The Oscar Grady Library Board last week named Julie Gallo, the library’s children’s services manager, interim director effective Aug. 28 until a new director is hired.

Laws’ four-year tenure as director of the Saukville library began in September 2022, and a short time later she told Ozaukee Press  that she saw “an opportunity to make Oscar Grady a real community center.”

Last week Laws said that opportunity has become a reality that began with a strategic planning process aimed at determining what services patrons wanted their library to offer.

“Through this process, I learned that residents were looking for opportunities to be engaged with the library through both programs and volunteering, solidifying my preconceived idea of the library being a community center,” she said. “My library team and I have worked hard to deliver on both.”

In response to feedback from residents, the library added STEM — science, technology, engineering and math — programs for children and teenagers and art programs to the already popular storytimes, book clubs and other reading programs it offers.

One of the library’s secrets to being able to offer a wide variety of programs for children, teenagers and adults, Laws said, was relying on area experts and agencies to lead them.

“We tapped into local talent, hiring artists to lead programs for adults and teens,” she said. “We brought in local organizations to talk about their areas of expertise and we leveraged area resources such as the ADRC (Ozaukee County Aging and Disability Resource Center), the UW-Extension Strong Bodies program and the BadgerTalks program to bring in subject experts.”

The library has also taken residents up on their offer to help by having volunteers lead library book clubs and provide outreach services at the Milan Estates assisted living facility and Ozaukee Food Alliance, both in Saukville, while the Friends of the Library provides support with book sale fundraisers and recently added murder mystery events.

And the library has gotten creative with the services it offers, which include Book a Librarian, a program that allows patrons to schedule a time to meet with a staff member to receive technology help, perhaps with setting up a new computer or cell phone.

Laws noted the library has also expanded its Adventure Pass program, which allows people to check-out passes to 14 regional attractions ranging from the Milwaukee County Zoo to the Wisconsin Maritime Museum in Manitowoc.

While focusing on programming and services, the library has not ignored its facility at 151 S. Main St.

With funding from the Village of Saukville, the library added meeting room technology that allows community groups to gather in person or remotely, converted its history room into a multipurpose space for individual and small-group work and transformed a storage area into a space for the Library of Things, a collection of non-traditional items such as WiFi hotspots, gaming consoles and yard games that, like books, can be checked out.

“We are successful in our programming and services because we have a talented, dedicated team with individual skill sets that complement each other, because we have an engaged community that helps us and uses us and because we have the support of the Village of Saukville administration, staff and trustees as well as the Library Board, the Friends of the Library and Monarch Library System,” Laws said.

Finding the next person to lead that team will fall to a hiring committee consisting of Village Administrator Dawn Wagner, Village President Andy Hebein, Library Board leaders and library staff members.

The village has posted the position and is searching for a certified librarian with at least three years of experience in library management.

The starting salary is $60,000 a year.

The posting notes that the Oscar Grady Library, a member of the Monarch Library System, which includes Ozaukee, Sheboygan, Washington and Dodge counties, serves a village of more than 4,200 residents and has a service population of more than 7,000 people.