‘The best decision I ever made’: Children’s librarian reflects on journey to current position

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You never know what you’re going to get when you enter the children’s wing of The Dalles Public Library on a Thursday morning, whether that’s a school of swimming fish or a group of roaring dinosaurs. What you can guarantee, however, is that whatever storytime theme the rambunctious toddlers are acting out, it was lovingly selected by the woman holding the books.

Every week, children’s librarian Rita Squires comes up with a theme. She picks books for each age group, plans songs and dances, and does her best to make sure everyone can have fun and learn something too. Even when things don’t go exactly to plan — as is often the case with 2- and 3-year-olds — kids and parents alike know Ms. Rita will meet them where they’re at.

With her obvious passion for the role, it may be surprising to know that it was never Squires’ plan to be a children’s librarian. She had always loved the library, but when she was younger, it had never occurred to her that it could be a potential career for her.

“When I was in grade school, I helped out in our school library every day,” she said. “We had a part time librarian, so in the afternoons when she left, I was there for an hour … And I wish at that time, someone had told me that, ‘Hey, you know, you could actually get paid for doing this,’ because I guess I didn’t realize that teachers get paid,” she admitted with a laugh. “Pursuing a library career just was not in my mind at all.”

Instead, Squires had decided she was going to be a secretary, and she did. For several years, she worked at an insurance company in various positions. Then she went to work for a newspaper in Oregon City as a copy typist for a few years.

When she started working in libraries, something clicked for Squires and she immediately loved it. In particular, she liked doing storytime. However, she wasn’t always as easygoing with it as she was now, which was something that made things more difficult.

The Dalles Library storytime — The crowd of parents and toddlers sit and watch as Rita begins storytime.
Alana Lackner photo

“When I moved into the kids department at my previous job, I had to do a baby storytime twice a month,” she said. “But as the baby storytime started to grow, I expected people to do what I wanted them to. You know, ‘I don’t care what your child is doing. This is what we’re doing. Now we’re going to sing this song because that’s what I want to do.’ And I went like two years like that, and I was so unhappy.”

Things changed when she went to a workshop about doing storytime.

“One of the things they told us was, ‘Get over yourself. It’s not about you,’” she said. “If it’s not working, find what’s going to work. I had to think about it for a while, but when I went back to work after that workshop and I got over myself, then I really started having fun with storytime.”

In 2008, she started at The Dalles library as the assistant children’s librarian. She did the occasional storytime and did outreach with Head Start three or four times a month. However, the children’s librarian at the time ended up taking time off to take care of her ailing husband and Squires found herself in a more active role.

She started doing outreach with some of the assisted living facilities and the veterans home, but after a few years, a few people within the library retired, and Squires found herself ordering audio books, large print books, magazines and newspapers. Luckily, she was able to continue her storytimes.

Every time she got settled, however, things seemed to change. After a couple years, there were more staffing changes and, most significantly, the children’s librarian retired.

“They hired a replacement that lasted like three months,” Squires said. “Well, and then they got another replacement for that, and that lasted a whole year. And then they got another replacement. And then they got another replacement.”

She found herself facing the prospect of applying for the children’s librarian, potentially being the fourth one in four years.

“I was not going to apply for it,” Squires admitted. “I did not. I love doing the storytimes, but I did not want to be the children’s librarian. I didn’t want that responsibility, because I was starting to think about retirement then.”

When the last children’s librarian went on maternity leave, Squires once again found herself taking an active role. She started “Fun Fridays,” a program for school-aged kids that changes every week, ranging from arts and crafts to games. They were a hit, and when the children’s librarian said she wouldn’t be coming back, parents and Squires’ co-workers alike began asking her if she would apply for the newly opened position.

“I honestly didn’t expect to get it, and I would have been perfectly happy not getting it,” she said. “But I looked at how many children’s librarians we had gone through and I thought, ‘We can’t do that to our public.’ You know, it’s just it’s not fair to these kids. And you know what? It was the best decision I ever made. I love it.”

Of course, in 2020, things changed with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. With changing regulations causing unexpected closures, things felt uncertain. What Rita was certain of, however, is that she still wanted to do storytimes. Then, now than ever, it felt needed.

“When we first reopened to the public, and I started doing storytimes, and I was doing storytimes on Facebook Live. We weren’t allowing kids in the library,” Squires said. “But I loved doing the Facebook Live storytimes because the kids thought I was famous. Actually, I have a niece that lives in central Montana and I’ve never met her, she only knows me through Facebook, and she was convinced I was a movie star.”

Even during the height of the pandemic, the library didn’t rest. Besides just the Facebook Lives, the library was researching Zoom programs. They paid for outside help to put on Zoom programs they couldn’t do alone, and they started the “Take and Make” craft kits.

“We were putting out hundreds of those every week,” Rita said. “It was a lot of work. I was buying ready-made kits, but it was still a lot of sterilizing and I had three different age groups to look at. I had the tiny ones, the very young school age, and then the older school age. And just by myself, I was sending out more than 100 kits a week and it was crazy.”

The library still has craft kits once a month, but they’re on a first-come, first-serve basis, where people come to the library to pick them up, rather than the library sending them out in the mail.

Once the library was able to reopen, Squires found things shifting again. They changed out the Facebook Live storytimes for in-person ones again.

“People started coming in and I had people coming from White Salmon and Hood River … My Thursday morning storytime got really big. I’ve had as many as 40 people in here,” Squires said. “But one day one of the moms, I think she was from Hood River, she says, ‘Why are they still allowing you to do this in person but they can’t do it in Hood River?’ and I hadn’t thought about it, but I just kind of said, ‘Well, because they haven’t told me I can’t.’ And that was true,” she laughed.

Now that things have started to get back to normal, Squires has been thrilled to start putting on Fun Fridays again. During COVID, they also occasionally did storytimes in City Park, and she’s been looking forward to starting to do that again. At this point though, anything she gets to do with the kids in her groups is a joy for her.

“I love the kids and I love keeping the kids busy,” she said. “I look forward to seeing who comes in every week, and I’m always happy to see that they love it as much as I do.”

The Dalles Wasco County Library is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday, and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday. For a full list of storytimes and other events the library puts on, visit wascocountylibrary.com/attend.