A History of Service to Rural Public Libraries

Beth worked at the Oxford County Library from 1978 until she was hired as County Librarian for the Huron County Library in 1988. In 2003, she also assumed the position as Director of Cultural Services for the County of Huron, with responsibilities for museums, archives, corporate records, and cultural and heritage activities. By 2010, the 60,000 residents of Huron County had combined library, museum and cultural services from twelve branch libraries, four museums, including a National Historic Site, from over 80 employees, and a budget of approximately $3.7 M. Beth retired from these positions in 2011.

During her tenure at the Huron County Library, the library underwent a Strategic Plan and Facility Model review, which was implemented by the Huron County Library Board and supported by Huron County Council. As Director of Cultural Services, Beth also helped spearhead the Huron County Cultural Plan.

Throughout her career, Beth has been a champion of rural library service, believing that rural residents deserve as high a level of library service as residents in urban areas. The arrival of the Internet has helped level inequities in access to information but also provided challenges for rural connectivity and access to digital resources. Throughout these significant changes in access to information, public libraries remain providers of facilitated access to books and other resources, and hubs for community interchange. Public libraries are the living rooms of the community.

Beth has been an active member of the Administrators of Rural and Urban Public Libraries of Ontario, and a speaker at many conferences and workshops. These include the Manitoba Public Library Service (“Standards for Rural Public Libraries: Tools for Decision Making”), Michigan Public Libraries (“Social and Economic Benefits of Public Libraries”), Canadian Library Association, Newfoundland (“Recruitment and Retention in Rural and Remote Libraries”), and the Ontario Museum Association.  She has contributed several times to sessions at the Ontario Library Association's annual conference. Recently, Beth and John presented a workshop, "It Takes a Community to Create a Guideline", at the Nova Scotia Library Association conference in 2022 in Sydney, NS.