Career opportunity takes Radford back to Boise

Kate Radford bid farewell to Lincoln this month as she left her position at the Lincoln Library to return to Boise, Idaho, where she began her new job Dec. 13 as the Information Services Supervisor at the Boise Public Library.

Radford, who worked at the Boise Public Library before coming to Lincoln, was offered the job where she will manage a number of programs, such as the library's Idaho history collection, adult programs, interlibrary loans and homebound services. She will oversee a team of 12, including four other librarians and eight librarian assistants.

"As far as career moves, this will give me a lot of experience and set me up for any other opportunities I want to pursue in libraries," she said.

Radford, the granddaughter of Jesse Sallin, came to Lincoln in July of 2019 and took over aas the Branch manager for the Lincoln branch of the Lewis and Clark Library from Sherri Wood, who retired after 36 years on the job. Radford jumped into both her role at the Lincoln Library and the community with both feet and quickly became a fixture in town and here at the BVD, where she worked part time as a reporter.

At the library, Radford introduced several new programs for kids and expanded the libraries community outreach. Unfortunately, much of her tenure in Lincoln coincided with COVID-19 and she said her time during the pandemic was hard because they didn't get to do a lot of in person programs at the library, nor many of the other things she had wanted to do. "Hopefully the next person will get to do that."

As a member of the community Radford served on the Lincoln Valley Chamber of Commerce Board- even spending a year as the president and as a board member of the Lincoln Council for the Arts for a time. She also attended the meetings of several local organizations and supported multiple community projects.

While there hasn't yet been any information on who the next branch manager may be, Radford said the library will be open regular hours with assistant librarian Eleanor Pierce and substitute librarians Karen???? and Akaiah Valler holding the fort.

"Eleanor is an amazing resource at the library, and I hope people continue to stop by. She knows so much, and she's so dedicated to the community," she said.

Radford also said the Book Club is set to keep going, and she hopes people in the community will go into the library and ask what the library has going on and let them know what they'd like to see.

"I'm really, really grateful to the community for welcoming me in and being patient and hearing all of the questions I asked," she said. "There's so much to know in Lincoln and it's such a dedicated community. Any community has its quirks, but people in Lincoln are so committed to making sure everybody else in Lincoln does OK, from maintaining the history to maintaining trails to helping out their neighbors when something goes wrong. I feel really, really grateful to have been part of that for a while."

Although she said it's hard for her to let go, Radford said she still has roots here and will definitely be back to visit.