BRATTLEBORO — Town Manager Peter Elwell announced at the Nov. 3 Selectboard meeting that Brooks Memorial Library will have a new director in the new year.
Starr LaTronica was the unanimous choice of the screening committee and library trustees, said Elwell.
According to her LinkedIn profile, LaTronica holds the position of youth services/outreach manager at the Four County Library System in Binghamton, N.Y., where she has worked for 20 years.
For the 14 years prior to Binghamton, LaTronica served in the Berkeley, Calif., Public Library system.
She is the past president of the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), a division of the American Library Association (ALA).
LaTronica has also served on other ALA committees, including Intellectual Freedom, Newbery, School-Age Programs and Services, and Membership.
Elwell said that LaTronica and her husband know Brattleboro well through visits and vacations.
She will start at Brooks on Jan. 19, 2016, Elwell said.
Current director Jerry Carbone will retire in December after more than 30 years.
In an interview with ASLC, LaTronica told why she became a librarian: “Because I am lucky!”
“I am lucky that I grew up in Iowa (in both rural and urban areas), with access to libraries in my schools and/or my community,” she continued. “I am lucky to have known librarians that delivered personal attention and service which provided me with the materials that helped me grow into a proficient and appreciative reader.
“Those books gave me a vision of a larger world and a consciousness of time and place beyond my own, a sense of possibilities, and ultimately, of purpose. By the time I began my studies at the University of California, Berkeley, I knew that I wanted to fulfill that same mission of bringing books to children that would enrich their lives and empower them with the skills they need, as those invested adults had done for me."