OUTLOOK - In the tech-driven society we live in today, where everyone seems obsessed with the electronic devices that can sometimes seem to be glued to our hands, it's good to know that in some communities, the local library is still very popular, where actual physical books can be signed out to be read and handled, as opposed to a stream of e-books that people can often forget about that just end up gathering up space in a phone or tablet.
The town of Outlook is very much included in that assessment, as the local library has become a beacon in the riverside community.
Nancy Gorman, manager of the Outlook Community Library, has only been in her role for a little over a year as she started on July 3rd of last summer, but she's been a constant presence in libraries during the span of her entire life.
"I've never been a librarian, but my first experiences with libraries was when I was in the 6th grade," she said, sitting down with this reporter at the library. "The librarian's name was Ruby Stevenson and she taught me the Dewey Decimal System, and she let me have free rein over the library. And that was fantastic because I love to read. I've had a varied career. I started out after I got my Masters in human resources, and I started working for an insurance company. I've also worked for a mutual funds company, I've worked with Nestle, as well as Home Depot, including opening the two stores in Saskatoon, and my last job before I retired to take care of my mom was with the Kamloops Indian Band in Kamloops, BC."
Originally from Northern Ontario after being born in Quebec, Nancy's dad was a mining engineer, which saw the family move quite often when she was young.
"I moved 11 times before I was 16 because with mining towns, you move two years here, three years there," she said. "The longest I've lived anywhere was four years!"
Moving to Outlook in the fall of 2020, Gorman says she decided to call the Irrigation Capital of Saskatchewan her new home because she had family here. Nancy's daughter is Rachel Sillers, who many may know as the assistant administrator for Outlook over at the town offices. The timing turned out to be perfect as well, as after Gorman moved into her new house in November, Rachel announced she was pregnant in January.
It was only a matter of time before Rachel's connections found something that she thought Mom may be interested in pursuing, as a position at the library opened up.
"When Susan Kasper resigned, Rachel told me there was a job coming up," said Nancy. "I was already retired, but she told me, 'There's a job coming up that is perfect for you'. So I applied and I think I was one of three or four people that applied, and I got the job. If there is any reason to come out of retirement, this is it. It's a fantastic job."
When you start to learn the ins and outs of running the local library, you begin to see that it can be so much more than just stacking books and signing them out to would-be readers. These days, it's also about appealing to the community and inviting them in to experience things and get added enjoyment out of their local library branch.
"Well, Fridays have a kind of routine," Gorman explained. "The Friday routine, we get totes that are full of books that people ordered. They get delivered around 9:30 in the morning, and then they all have to be processed with little slips put on them, and then they're alphabetized and stacked up over there. That usually takes the morning to process everything because we usually get somewhere between 235 and 280 books. At 1:00 on Fridays, people start coming to pick their books up. The other typical thing we do is storytimes on Tuesdays and Saturdays, where we'll have a guest reader and a craft for kids to do. They also get a treat, and often times they'll stay because we have different toys for them to use, especially on Saturdays. You can find them spread out all over the floor! It's so much fun!"
Gorman says keeping up on the names of library patrons has been something she's working on, and explains that sometimes the library is a stop for motorists who are asking for directions on how to get somewhere, which can bring its own set of challenges.
"I'm going to say remembering everyone's name, because I try to," she said. "For regular patrons, I do know everyone's name, I don't even need to see their library card. As well, sometimes answering just general questions, like people stopping in to ask where is such and such in town, or when we had all the construction in town, how do I get to such and such? I do have maps, but I know those can be challenging for some people. Aside from that, there aren't a lot of challenges, it's just an enjoyable and fantastic job. I love it."
Aside from getting to know new people in her line of work, sometimes getting first dibs on some new reading material is one of those interesting perks of the job.
"I actually had a benefit this morning," said Nancy. "We get books when they're brand new and being put into the system, which I might take out for myself first before I put them on the shelf. So that's a benefit. Listening to patrons and getting their feedback on books that are on my very large list of books to read. I ask people, did you enjoy it? What did you like? That sort of thing, and so they give me recommendations. And I can also give recommendations to other people, telling them that they might like this book. That kind of stuff is so fun. And just chatting with people is so great."
And if you may think that being a librarian confines someone like Nancy to just within the walls of the library itself, think again. Sometimes you'll see her out there in the community, helping others gain access to new reading material. People might sometimes even let her pick their reading material for them. Things like this show people that being a librarian can sometimes mean so much more than just stamping out books and placing them back on the shelf.
"Well, I do pickups and deliveries and I order books for people in town who can't get into the library, so I'll drop them off and pick them up," she explained. "I'll also order books for people when they say I'd like a book, and they leave it up to me. A stack of patrons who just leave their reading up to me and I get to choose the books for them. That's very interesting, leaving that up to me. I always tell them I'm never offended if they don't like a book, but I like to know what they like about a book and then I could recommend others for them and order them. That's always really nice."
With the library connected to Outlook High School, the kind of people and experiences that Nancy may see varies. She sees what school life is like for the younger generations of students coming up, as well as seeing babies get introduced to all that a library offers. The whole thing has been an eye-opening experience for her.
"Being in the library, you see a lot of what goes on in the high school," she said. "You get to hear things and you might see the bullying and things like that. It's terrible that it exists in the first place, but you also get exposed to a lot of different types of people, and some people want to chat and some people don't, they just want to do a transaction. But the thing is, we do a lot of workshops and things and we do those sometimes at nights and on weekends, and so you get to meet a lot of new people, and I get to see the kids grow up. They started out as babies and now they're walking, and they come in for story time with their parents, and it's fantastic."
Gorman has started work shops at Golden Acres and Luther Place, which are right by the library, and some refurbishments and updating have livened the place up. She's also visited with a number of businesses in town to see if they'd be interested in sponsoring things like a Little Free Library, and to date, she has six signed up.
As well, upcoming events include the library's end of the summer indoor camping night for kids, where a tipi style tent will be put up and kids will enjoy things like s'mores as well as crafts. Gorman said the plan is to black out the library windows and put on a light show, so both she and local kids are looking forward to that event on the last Saturday of the month. Thinking ahead, Nancy says she's already booking things like the library's Halloween party, and Santa and Mrs. Claus are already pencilled in for the Christmas shindig in December.
Gorman says that it's the people who help make Outlook stand out as a community, which is something that she's noticed in the short time she's called this town home.
"As I mentioned, I moved here during Covid, and I only got to know my neighbours on either side of me, who are fantastic," she said. "I started going with Rachel to the Lutheran Church, and I'm not Lutheran as I'm Jewish, but going to the Lutheran Church for coffee time allowed me to meet a fantastic group of people. Wonderful people. People welcome you to the community and they're just so warm and open, and then once I started volunteering at the museum, I met all kinds of people and learned a lot of the history of Outlook."
Nancy thanks people for continuing to visit the library, and the encouraging numbers show that people are eager to read and keep their local library both open and relevant. It goes to show that in a community like Outlook, perhaps reading is still King.
"I thank them for coming into the library," said Gorman, addressing the public. "To know that the library is more than just books and transactions. If you want it to be more than that, let me know. We're open to all kinds of things. I have a patron survey and a storytime survey out there so that we can get more information from the public. Our numbers are going up. On average, there are 12 new people joining the library every month. We welcome all new people to the community, and we host an evening for them so they can get to know the library and the resources available to them. That is so great, because then they become regulars and a lot of them start to learn English."
