To celebrate School Library Month, we reached out to learn more about Karen and her work!

What is your advice to fellow librarians?
Be BOLD. Be BRAVE. Advocate hard for your program; it is so critically important for educating the “whole” student. Outline the vision for your library and your programs and work hard to make that vision become reality. And most importantly, do not be afraid to keep asking for what you want.

How do you define your role as a school librarian?
I am a woman who wears many hats. I am a collaborator, a seeker of knowledge, a search engine, an editor-in-chief, a champion in helping students navigate the world of scholarships, and a cheerleader for students and teachers. I am diligent in my purpose, resourceful, and mostly I am a lover of knowledge and can proudly say I am a lifelong learner.

What is a project that you’ve found really resonates with your students?
The project that impacts my students the most would be my remodeling of the Belle Fourche High School Library last summer. This library opened in the early 1980s and had seen little updating since its inception. An English teacher, a special education teacher, and I spent much of the summer tearing apart shelves, painting, and genrefying the fiction section. I purchased new comfortable furniture to accommodate patrons. This has completely changed the entire environment of the library. Patrons enjoy their new spaces immensely and tell me that it opened up the whole library and made it welcoming and aesthetically appealing for all of them to enjoy.

How have you sought to improve library services over the years?
In 2015, I led a community book drive to get books in the hands of all my students. Former First Lady of South Dakota Linda Daugaard came to the school, read to students, and paid forward 200 books from our book drive to the next city she visited, which was Sisseton.

During the 2016-17 school year, I was awarded a Classroom Innovation Grant from the South Dakota Department of Education in the amount of $46,694 to turn our middle school library into a makerspace library.

This past summer, I was able to use CARES ESSER funds to purchase new durable, easy-to-clean furniture for our high school library. We turned our library into a modern, genrefied library which offers comfortable, clean spaces and a pleasant environment for all patrons, both students and faculty, to enjoy.

What kinds of unique professional development have you pursued?
In October 2018, I was selected to enter a three-year cohort group of 39 librarians from South Dakota, North Dakota, and Wyoming. This program was made possible through an Institute of Museum and Library Services grant, which entailed face-to-face and virtual learning opportunities for the participants to further develop our librarianship and programs by navigating through rigorous and relevant professional development classes. I earned 12 credits from the University of Sioux Falls. The culminating activity was a session at the American Association of School Librarians National Conference in Salt Lake City in October 2021. We participated in a panel discussion of the benefits and growth experienced during this library-specific professional development opportunity.

I was selected as one of 33 librarians from across the country to go to Washington, D.C., to complete the Primary Sources class during the Summer Institute at the Library of Congress in spring 2019.