Katie Beitzel is new library director

Error message

  • Warning: array_merge(): Argument #1 is not an array in _simpleads_render_ajax_template() (line 133 of /home/pdccourier/public_html/sites/all/modules/simpleads/includes/simpleads.helper.inc).
  • Notice: Trying to get property of non-object in _simpleads_adgroup_settings() (line 343 of /home/pdccourier/public_html/sites/all/modules/simpleads/includes/simpleads.helper.inc).
  • Warning: array_merge(): Argument #1 is not an array in _simpleads_render_ajax_template() (line 157 of /home/pdccourier/public_html/sites/all/modules/simpleads/includes/simpleads.helper.inc).

Newly-hired library director Katie Beitzel began her position Jan. 3. An open house is scheduled for Wednesday, Jan. 30, from 4-6 p.m. to meet the new director. (Press photo by Caroline Rosacker)

By Caroline Rosacker

The Guttenberg Public Library Board recently hired Kathryn Beitzel for the position of full-time library director. 

In open house for the public is scheduled at the library on Wednesday, Jan. 30, from 4-6 p.m., to introduce Beitzel to the community. 

Katie, as she prefers to be called, grew up in Cedar Rapids. 

"I always loved to read and spent many hours at the Cedar Rapids Public Library. I was a big fan of R.L. Stine in middle school; it was a very popular series," commented Beitzel.

Beitzel is also a huge fan of all things Harry Potter. She noted, "The Harry Potter series was really the beginning of what is now referred to as young adult literature. In my youth, there were very few choices for young adults. As a middle school student, I jumped from junior fiction to adult fiction and started reading novels written by, John Grisham." 

Beitzel attended Clarke College in Dubuque where she earned her bachelor's degree in history.

"During my sophomore year, one of my professors asked me what I intended to do with my history degree. He suggested two options — continue on for a degree in museum studies or consider a degree in library science. I was working in the Clarke College campus library at the time, enjoyed what I was doing, so decided to pursue my master's degree in library science," stated Beitzel. 

Her course of study took her to The University of Maryland where she earned her master's degree.

Beitzel's library career experience includes: employment at the  Cedar Rapids Public Library as a customer service associate and the Dubuque County/NICC branch as their community liaison.

Collection management is a top priority for the new director. 

"Keeping the library relevant,  with a willingness to adapt to the community's needs as well as keeping up with  current trends in library programming, is my first order of business," said Beitzel.

"I like to use Facebook and Snapchat to stay up-to-date with what is popular in other libraries. I utilize these tools to see what other libraries are doing all across the United States. I can take an idea that a library in a much larger city is doing and scale it down to accommodate my current library patrons," commented Beitzel. 

Take a trip to your local library a top priority this winter. Check out all the library has to offer and meet our community's new library director.

Rate this article: 
Average: 4.7 (3 votes)
http://guttenbergpress.com/articles/2019/01/23/katie-beitzel-new-library-director
guttenbergpress.com
crawl=CC-MAIN-2019-39
63284
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:4NO6QSSQ2UJT5366UYUUGYXKLOOVIFFQ
<urn:uuid:e5cdea06-54a2-4262-93ec-d64c329624f1>
2019-09-18T07:45:45Z
209.188.84.238
application/xhtml+xml
sha1:CHGILBJIZ37X5UIANJI3AEKMJNJWAPSB
<urn:uuid:0a040ffa-c856-46fe-b83c-a3d287938262>
http://guttenbergpress.com/articles/2019/01/23/katie-beitzel-new-library-director
response
<urn:uuid:387954b8-e4f3-4dae-9af9-48d51f4d5c47>
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2019-39
publisher: Common Crawl
description: Wide crawl of the web for September 2019
operator: Common Crawl Admin (info@commoncrawl.org)
hostname: ip-10-67-67-140.ec2.internal
software: Apache Nutch 1.15 (modified, https://github.com/commoncrawl/nutch/)
robots: checked via crawler-commons 1.1-SNAPSHOT (https://github.com/crawler-commons/crawler-commons)
format: WARC File Format 1.1
conformsTo: http://iipc.github.io/warc-specifications/specifications/warc-format/warc-1.1/