Library welcomes two new board members

The Gibson Memorial Library’s Board of Trustees welcomed two new members, Rebecca Slick and Melissa Levine, to their board Monday night.

Slick works as a librarian and adjunct history professor at Southwestern Community College. It was there she heard about the open board position from coworker and fellow library board member Ann Coulter.

“I kind of have been hearing bits and pieces working with Ann Coulter. I’m interested, because my kids have benefited from a lot of the programs through the library, and so they love looking through the books,” Slick said. “I’ve always found it fascinating to encourage people to read a book, to find out some of those things. Hopefully being a part of the board, I can be a part of that, bring back that love of reading.”

Slick said her favorite book growing up was “Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes” by Eleanor Coerr. She also recently finished “The Hate U Give” by Angie Thomas, which she said she loved.

Levine is a nurse at Greater Regional Health, working in infection prevention. She also has a degree in English literature. Though she grew up in Lenox, Levine has lived in Creston for the last 12 years after marrying a Creston native.

Despite growing up in Lenox, Levine has gone to Gibson Memorial Library much of her life due to a greater quantity of books. She hopes to support the library in its endeavors as she joins the board.

“I want to try to support my community and make sure that our library stays functional and continues to change with the changing times,” Levine said. “It’s very important that we keep this going, because reading really continues to blossom our people, even our adults, into different kinds of people.”

Levine said her favorite book currently is “Desert Solitaire” by Edward Abbey.

In other library board news...

A new assistant director position is open for applications on the library’s website. The assistant director “works closely with the library director to oversee daily operations of the library and assumes the duties of the director in their absence.”

Work on the pavilion is progressing quickly. Library Director Danielle Dickinson Thaden shared the concrete base has been poured.

“They poured the concrete for the pavilion, to anchor it down,” Dickinson Thaden said. “You might have seen those huge cardboard tubes out there last week. Those are now filled with concrete.”

Dickinson Thaden said they used recycled rather than new concrete, which drastically brought down the price, from $40 a ton to $8 a ton of concrete, with 20 tons being used.

The next steps for the pavilion include electrical, a final layer of concrete and Greiner Bulidings building the structure, with plans to finish the project this month.