We're grateful we can help you get to know our MLC staff better, doubly so when it's our veteran staff. Welcome back to another edition of Meet MLC Monday "Senior Edition"! Margaret Smitherman has been a Readers Advisor with the Mississippi Library Commission's Talking Book Services for the Blind and Print Disabled for nearly 15 years; she started with the agency back in April of 2006. Margaret works directly with Talking Book Services members: assisting with their applications, helping with book requests and suggestions, pointing them in the right direction for other library issues, and, of course, “other duties as assigned”. Some people may not realize this, but our readers advisors are in a unique relationship with their patrons. They talk to many of these library users weekly about books they need and issues they're having. It can become a true labor of love--connecting people with books and the outside world.
Over the years, as Margaret helped people across the state with their book needs, she also helped them adapt to technology and service changes. She says, "When I first came to work here, we had a program called Lobe Library, which was a kind of trial of what our digital book program has become. I was put in charge of this program, where I sent downloaded books from an Audible platform out to a list of participating patrons on a little device that would only hold one book. We did this until the digital book service was well established in 2010."
We asked Margaret a few more tough questions, but she graciously gave us frank answers. We learned that she is a cat-loving early bird who thrives in the warm summer months. She also said that, if she had to hook up two characters from different books, that she would set up David Copperfield with Sara Crewe. "I don’t think there is any danger of them getting married, but I would love to read their letters to each other." Margaret, who is a big fantasy and sci-fi fan, told us about the most famous person she met. She and her husband took a Star Trek cruise with most of the original cast back in 1987. She says, "They were all interesting people to meet, but the one who made the biggest impression on me was Mark Leonard, who played Spock’s father. We got to know him very well, and were even part of an organization that hosted a Star Trek Convention in Jackson with him as the guest in the 1990s."
Stay tuned as we check back in with other long-time MLC staff from time to time here on Meet MLC Monday. Until next time, happy reading!
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