Canby Herald Online

On board at the library

Penny Hummel is named the new library director at Canby Public Library

• By: Peggy Savage  
• Published: 10/14/2009 3:51:19 PM
• Last Updated: 10/15/2009 10:41:10 PM

Photo By: Peggy SavageNew director
"I started wearing different hats in the library system and I loved it. But I realized over time that working in the library itself is where I wanted to be in my career." - Penny Hummel

Penny Hummel has a history in libraries.

The new director of Canby Public Library, Hummel replaces Beth Saul, who served as interim director and projects manager. Hummel has wasted no time, getting involved in new goals for the library first advocated by Saul.

With the escalating downtown development in Canby, Hummel said there’s been greater interest in building a new library, coordinating efforts with the new Canby Cinema 8 theater complex, one of the downtown’s lynchpin developments through the Urban Renewal Agency.

The Canby Library Board began discussion in February on pursuing plans to build a new library facility that meets both the OLA standards and community needs. The board is interested in a possible public-private partnership for a development that could include a library.

City administrators have also shown an interest, especially now that the library district will be offering each city in the network a share of the old library levy funding to use towards capital expansion projects. Canby should receive its share in 2011, according to board documents.

“We are exploring what’s possible and seeing what’s feasible,” Hummel said. “This building has been a good library for Canby and served the community well. But we could better serve the community with an enhanced facility. We want to take a look at what the community needs are and think about where we’d want to be in the near future. This is clearly a community that loves its library, and every community needs a strong library that meets its needs.”

Hummel started out in 1993 as a community volunteer at the Multnomah County Library in downtown Portland, was named to the Friends of the Library board and then served as president of the organization during the renovation of Central Library in downtown Portland.

That was a segue into joining the Multnomah County library staff in 2001 as public relations manager, where she coordinated communications, programming and media relations for the 17-branch metropolitan library system. She was also the project manager for Everybody Reads, the library’s award-winning citywide book discussion.

“I started wearing different hats in the library system and I loved it,” Hummel said. “But I realized over time that working in the library itself is where I wanted to be in my career.”

Hummel, a graduate of Reed College in Portland with a degree in Russian literature, enrolled in a specialized program for library managers who lack a degree in library science.    

In 2007, she earned an executive master’s degree in library science at San Jose State, the largest library science program in the country.

“Ultimately, it felt good to explore opportunities,” Hummel said. “Then Clackamas County voters passed the library district last winter, which opened an opportunity for me with this library. I knew this would be the perfect job for me. So when they offered me the job, I took it.”

 Moving from a large metropolitan library system with multiple branches to a small town library that’s part of a district network has been an eye-opener, she said.

“Here in Canby, I see lots of community involvement in the library and support for the library,” she said. “We’ve got a committed staff, hard working staff members who have been doing any job that needed doing, without a lot of resources.”

While with Multnomah County, she worked in the administrative office, not in the library itself. But in Canby, Hummel said, she can also spend time actually working in the stacks and at the circulation desk, meeting people in the community.

“This is different environment,” she said. “I loved what I did before, but now I can see how tangibly the library changes lives every day. “One of the first days on the job, a little boy asked me for fantasy books for a fifth-grader. It was so fun to help him find a few books. It’s great, connecting the right book to the right person.”

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