A friend wrote this upon my resignation at SBPL. It reminds me of how much I accomplished and how much fun I had.

Molly joined SBPL as the Programming and Marketing Librarian in 2016 and quickly brought new, innovative, and community-responsive programming to the library including a Local Author/Indie Author Day workshop and book fair, Coding Club for teens, and an epic Harry Potter’s Day (this was before J.K. Rowling double-down on her anti-trans rhetoric. She and the staff gladly gave it up when it was clear that it was potentially harmful to members of the community). She also took on much of the library’s collection development, working to evaluate use and modernize categorization, maintenance, labeling, and selection of materials using a data-driven approach. (If you can believe it, not all of the books had cutter labels when she started).

In March of 2017, she was promoted to Senior Librarian and took on the supervision of the Youth Services team while continuing to lead programming and marketing. She collaborated on a community outreach project using the Harwood Approach, facilitating many community meetings to gather public knowledge about community aspirations. She implemented a staff training and evaluation plan for early literacy education and expanded the storytime schedule to an average of 15 sessions per week. Under her leadership, STEAM and maker programming and outreach grew extensively. These initiatives were supported by grants like Google Ready to Code and through partnerships like the Amateur Radio on the Space Station project. Molly emphasized readers’ advisory training for all staff to help better connect the community with books and materials and used data-driven methods for collection development. To better support education, Molly supported the Student Success Card initiative so all students in the local school district are given the opportunity to have a library card.

As part of a statewide cohort, she led the SBPL team in developing Stay and Play, an innovative model for early literacy programming and caregiver education. She wrote a grant to offer Mental Health first aid to staff and community members and coordinated a Mental Health Resources Fair. To support struggling readers, she launched OG Readers, an Orton-Gillingham-based tutoring program for 1st-4th graders.

After serving in an acting role for a year, in November 2019, she was promoted to Library Services Manager. During the pandemic, she led the library through a complete pivot to continue to serve the community during unprecedented times. She ensured the safe delivery of services, even helping to figure out how to remotely answer phones on the ridiculous, antiquated phone system and offer sidewalk service with precautions that prioritized staff safety.

She successfully advocated for the City Council to fund a contracted social worker position and collaborated with a partner to integrate resource navigation into library services, enabling the most vulnerable patrons to access community services. She worked with the local mutual aid group, the People’s Pantry, to offer hygiene, food, and basic necessities.

She led staff in the development and redesign of a new website, facilitated the growth of social media marketing, and increased community awareness of library services through targeted outreach. She doesn’t take credit for the creativity of the team who made viral reels, but she loved enabling their greatness.

SB Reads grew under her leadership to an inclusive, all-ages, community-wide celebration of reading. In 2022, she worked with Joy Harjo’s agent, publisher, and a local press to produce a selection of poems translated into Spanish to ensure the Spanish-speaking community was included.

With a keen attention to detail, she never settled for mediocre, which is why Eastside Library has a custom skateboard collage art bench designed and made by a nationally recognized local artist instead of a boring gray bench.

Molly made a lasting impact on SBPL in ways big and small. While little was done on her own, almost none of the modernization and expansion of service would have been possible without her, and the courage and leadership of the Library Director.