Scarborough Public Library Director Richard “Chip” Shrader, most recently director at the Goodall Library in Sanford, started work this week. Drew Johnson / The Forecaster
Richard “Chip” Schrader’s first day as director of Scarborough Public Library started at 4 a.m. on Monday when he awoke to head to Scarborough for a 5 a.m. TV interview on banned books. About 12 hours later, as the library was closing, he was bustling around the building taking notes and bidding patrons farewell.
In between, Schrader worked to get acclimated to the library’s systems, facilities and operations, meet his new staff, reconnect with library board members and chat with residents.
“It was a very memorable first day and I really have to say that I’m surrounded by amazing people,” he said in his new office around 5:15 p.m. “I’m very pleased.”
Nancy Crowell, who retired after 45 years as director, left him some big shoes to fill, Schrader said, but it was Crowell and the legacy she leaves behind that drew him to the Scarborough job.
“Nancy Crowell is well known among librarians as top-notch, so I knew this organization was going to be well oiled,” Schrader said. “They’re always so innovative, they’re good problem solvers and they come up with really cool ideas … The innovation here, as well as the reputation of the staff, were huge.”
Schrader, who lives in Buxton, was director at the Springvale Public Library from 2012 to 2019 and the Louis B. Goodall Library in Sanford from 2019 through September of this year. He began his career in Kittery in 2004.
“My grandmother suggested that I try library work and I started as a temp down in Kittery,” he said. “I was very introverted growing up and I found that working the front desk at a library I could connect with people, which was kind of lacking in my life before that.”
Given the setting, many of those connections revolved around books, which was a topic Schrader, who studied literature in college, felt comfortable with.
“This profession took me by the stranglehold at that point,” he said, laughing. “I was just very happy, and I knew I could do this line of work.”
After leading the Goodall Library through the early years of the pandemic, he secured $3 million in federal funding toward a roughly $4-million library expansion.
“I thought, ‘It’s a long shot but you might as well give it a try,'” Schrader said of applying for the funding.
One of his last duties at Goodall Library was moving it to a temporary space ahead of construction for the expansion.
Schrader’s experience as a director and his successful efforts toward the Goodall expansion put him on the top of the Scarborough Library’s Board of Trustees’ list of applicants to replace Crowell.
“We conducted a nationwide search and we had many applications,” said Bill Donovan, board president. “It was very evident to the group, with a unanimous viewpoint, that Chip rose to the top of that process. Chip had everything we were looking for.”
Schrader said he and board members have “talked a bit” about the Scarborough library’s quest for an expansion, and more conversations are on the horizon. Those talks will likely include an analysis of why a proposal for the town to borrow up to $16 million for the expansion failed at the polls in November 2022, he said.
Patience is also key.
“We’re going to be as patient as we can because we really want to make sure we present it at a time where the community is ready to see it, when the community knows that they need it,” Schrader said. “We’re going to work very hard with that.”
He wants to help the library maintain its reputation for innovation, noted that it introduced e-books early on and also embraced the “library of things” concept before most other Maine libraries by lending basketballs and soccer balls to children after school.
“Once you get a couple of weeks of a new question that keeps coming up, a technology trend, and of course current events,” he said, “that’s when you really start thinking ‘OK, there’s something to this, there’s traction,’ and as an experimenter I would find a way to inexpensively just touch our toe in the water with it and see how it goes.”
He is interested in providing education around technological trends such as the metaverse and artificial intelligence.
“That’s information and librarians are information professionals,” Schrader said. “Public librarians are on the front line, so I think teaching and finding ways of reaching out to our public on how to be aware of what these new technologies can do and how to protect themselves from it (is important).”
It was a busy first day for Schrader, but his 5 a.m. television interview began with a smile and his last meeting of the day – an interview with The Forecaster – ended with one, too.
“I do have to say, it’s only been a day, but it’s been a real thrill,” he said. “I’m so, so pleased to be here.”
Comments are not available on this story.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
