Greetings to all of you! My name is Cheryl Sylvester and I am thrilled to be joining your library as the new Director. I truly believe that free public libraries and the access to information is such an important part of our country. I have had visitors from foreign countries in the library that are amazed that they can even touch the books, let alone able to check them out! Winchester should take great pride in the providing such a fine library to the community.

I have been a librarian since 1990 when I was employed as a children’s librarian in Ottawa, Kansas. My husband and I are empty-nesters, with our only dependent at the moment is Lamar our 6 year old Golden retriever. Our daughters live in Denver, Portland and Washington DC. We live in Atchison where I am a member of Kiwanis and Zonta. We are also very active members of Atchison United Methodist Church.

I have seen a lot of change come to libraries in the past 20 years. Does anyone remember when there was a struggle in communities whether or not videos should be purchased by libraries? Library school teaches us that libraries are ever changing. That’s a good thing. Life demands that we grow and change to stay vital. Libraries need to also follow that guideline. Just as we incorporated videos, then dvds into collections, now it’s the need for e-books and defining the libraries role in an ever-changing society. This is exciting to me.

I hope to meet a lot of you and hope that you share with me your ideas of this library’s role in the community. I am changing the look of the book shelf. The books I have enjoyed this past summer are in the side bar to the left. Maybe there are some titles that you would be interested in also. Now you can click to see if it’s available in NExpress.