Sarah Sole
After 30 years with the organization, Director Suellen Goldsberry is retiring from the Pickerington Public Library in August.
In the three positions she has held during her tenure, Goldsberry effected change on a variety of levels, from her efforts to automate the library system in 1990 to securing the passage of a much-needed 2009 operating levy.
Goldsberry has also seen the library’s patrons grow from children to adults, some of whom now take their own children to visit the library. Her own introduction to the library also happened at a young age.
“I grew up in a family that really appreciated library service,” Goldsberry says.
Her father served on the Pickerington Public Library board for 20 years. Her grandmother, who
Courtesy of Suellen Goldsberry
Suellen Goldsberry celebrates her birthday with her granddaughters. From left to right: Kendall Brown, Rylan Brown and Lilith Kile.
lived in rural Athens County and was unable to drive, got her library books delivered by mail. While her grandmother never completed high school, Goldsberry says, she never stopped learning.
Born in 1950 in Athens, Goldsberry moved with her parents to Pickerington when she was 3. Her childhood was marked by an appreciation of literature, a love that would grow into something more concrete when she volunteered at her school library.
“That just sort of planted the seed,” she says.
Still, Goldsberry is careful to separate her love for library work from her love for reading, saying the former has to do more with providing a service and helping people. After all, she says, she’s never read a book on the job.
Goldsberry joined the library in September 1985 as the first full-time children’s librarian, responsible for story times and children’s programming. The facility was in the old Carnegie Library Building at 15 E. Columbus St. back then, and the children’s library, which she managed by herself, was downstairs.
The position worked well for Goldsberry, whose love for children initially motivated her to pursue elementary education when she first attended college.
“I looked at my time as a children’s librarian not so much as work as getting paid to play,” she says.
In 1990, Goldsberry helped automate the library system. Together with a coworker, she worked nights for about a month to add barcodes to each of the library’s approximately 48,000 books.
Technology has evolved with Goldsberry’s career. Prior to her employment, she had to work on a computer for one of her classes in library education.
“I was scared to death of that thing,” she says.
When Goldsberry began working as a full-time library employee, she did so while also maintaining her roles as full-time student and full-time mother of three young girls.
Goldsberry had left Asbury College (now University) in Wilmore, Ky. at age 20 to get married. In her late 30s, motivated by her father and grandmother, she decided to return to college, this time attending Ohio University’s Lancaster campus.
While her parents were supportive of her decision, her husband was decidedly less so.
“He actually caused more dissension in the home than being a support,” Goldsberry says.
When Goldsberry told her husband she wanted to return to school and become a librarian, he
refused to pay for it. She took out a student loan and paid her own way. Her marriage ended when she was 42.
At one point, when her marriage was in distress, Goldsberry, who had become a single
Sarah Sole
parent, had to cut back to taking one course at a time. Her youngest daughter, then 19, was still living at home. Then, in 2000, her 80-year-old father suffered a massive heart attack and died.
Goldsberry credits her professor at the time for helping her stay motivated.
“If she hadn’t been so understanding, I think at that point, I would have just given up, because it was just too overwhelming,” Goldsberry says.
Goldsberry graduated with a bachelor of science degree in organizational communication, since the university did away with its library media program.
Goldsberry became assistant director in 2000 and held the position for nearly six years. During that time, she enrolled in Ohio University’s executive public administration program. She became director in February 2006 and graduated with her master’s degree in 2007.
In 2009, Goldsberry led a successful campaign for an operating levy. While the library passed a bond issue in the early 1990s to build its facility, by 2009, Pickerington had grown considerably. The campaign was a multi-year project, and one the library very much needed to win.
“Things had gotten tight enough that we had to let some people go,” Goldsberry says.
Luckily, Goldsberry had people close to her who could give her advice. Her daughter was working for the Ohio State House of Representatives, while Bob Blair, director of the Ohio Department of Administrative Services, was a library board member.
Goldsberry’s community service has extended beyond her career. In 1993, she served a year as a Violet Township trustee after being appointed to fill a vacancy. Following that, she served on the township’s zoning board. She has been involved in the Pickerington Area Chamber of Commerce since 2006, when she became library director. For several years, she served on the Taste of Pickerington Committee, and she’s currently chairwoman of the board.
Her outreach efforts throughout her career haven’t gone unnoticed. In 2011, Goldsberry received the Pickerington Alumni Association Outstanding Member Award and, in 2013, she received an ATHENA Award from the Chamber.
When she retires at the end of August, Goldsberry hopes to spend time with her family. Her granddaughters are 11, 7 and 3. She especially wants time to connect with the eldest before the preteen gets much older.
“I had a very special relationship with my grandmother, so I guess that’s what I’m wanting,” Goldsberry says.
Goldsberry also looks forward to spending more time with her mother, who is 93.
In addition to cleaning up her own garden, Goldsberry will also help her niece with her special events floral business.
“I never wanted to stick around and become the one that was hiding in the office waiting to retire,” Goldsberry says.
Sarah Sole is an editor. Feedback welcome at gbishop@cityscenemediagroup.com.
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