By Matt Mackinder
Clarkston News Editor

Julie Meredith blinked and 25 years went by.
The director of the Clarkston Independence District Library (CIDL), Meredith celebrated her 17th year in that role this month and her 25th overall working in the business.
Meredith, a Clarkston native, was the CIDL’s teen services librarian from 1998-2004 before taking a job with the Library of Michigan in Lansing from 2004-06. She was hired again as the CIDL director in 2006.
“So, interestingly, I actually started volunteering at the library when I was 12 and I worked as a volunteer for three years; they hired me when I was 15 to shelve books and I did that all through high school,” Meredith said. “Anne Rose was the children’s librarian here from 1973-2001, and I kind of acted as her assistant. I would do tasks for her, help her, and keep track of books and things like that. So that was just even before I was a librarian.”
Working as a librarian down in Ohio for several years, Meredith said she wanted to move closer to home and became the CIDL’s first-ever teen services librarian in 1998. “It was right after they built the new school and they kind of hired me as the as the teen wrangler because they were concerned that being so close to the library that we would have huge influxes of teenagers after right after school,” said Meredith. “They were worried that somebody needed to be mindful of serving that specific population, making sure we were adequately stocked with books and programs and things for that for that particular group. And so I did that for about six years and then I had the opportunity to go work for the Library of Michigan, which was really exciting. I did workshops for children’s librarians all over the state of Michigan, and they really loved that. That was fun.
“And then when the director left, I had an e-mail from some of the staff and they said, ‘Hey, we need a director. Would you consider applying?’ And that time I spent at the Library of Michigan, I discovered that I already knew that this library was very much loved by the community, but I discovered that there were some legal issues in the way that the library was structured, that the law that the library had been established under had been repealed and that the library would need to reestablish at some point. But there was no deadline as to when to do that. And so the law was repealed in 1976. And here we are. In 2006, it had never been reestablished under a valid law and so there were issues with the libraries, funding, and the way it was being maintained and things like that in the township. I was open to the possibility of trying to fix it.”

Meredith admitted that she wasn’t sure where to start with her newfound project.
“Although the first thing they asked me was, ‘Why did they repeal the law?’ and I said, ‘Well, I was five when they did it, so I don’t really know. But they did and it happened and so we need to do something about it,’” Meredith said. “They hired me and I came in 2006 and it took us until 2012 to kind of wade through all the legalities of it and figure that out and get us so that we were appropriately legal and adequately funded and all of that kind of stuff.”
When asked why she took the career path she did, Meredith said one of the main reasons was due to her surroundings growing up.
“You know, it’s really funny,” she said. “I volunteered when I was a kid just because my mom is a huge reader. I’m a huge reader. As many parents who have a huge reader in their household know, the best way to do that is to go to the library because you can spend a lot of money on books if you’ve got a big reader in your house. And so we were here every single week. My brother remembers the original library, which is the little white house over on Main Street. I remember the little, brown brick building that was built on this property in 1969. It is now the children’s department in the footprint of the original building. This building was expanded in 1992 to its current size. But I guess everybody else knew I was going to be a librarian before I did.”
Meredith said she went to college for psychology and has a background in developmental psychology.
“When I got through that (college), and I just kept going back to the library to work every year in the summer and whatever, I had the opportunity to become a children’s librarian, and that was the road I went to,” said Meredith. “So everybody else knew before I did. They’d go, ‘Yeah, she’s gonna be a librarian.’”
Graduating from Clarkston High School in 1989, Meredith then obtained her undergraduate degree from Bowling Green State University and her master’s degree in Library Science from Kent State University – two Ohio schools.
“My dad’s a Buckeye,” said Meredith. “He doesn’t like to say that out loud too often, but he’s a Buckeye. I was born in Michigan, though.”
Three years ago when the COVID pandemic struck, many businesses were impacted, and that included libraries.
Meredith said that there was one way the CIDL stayed open and sustainable through it all.
“Even from the time I was a kid all the way up through COVID, this community truly loves its library, sees the value in it, feels it’s important,” Meredith said. “It’s a resource for kids, for families, for adults and older adults as well. There’s something for everyone. It’s every library, you know? If you go to libraries anywhere in the country, every library has kind of its own feel, and this library has a very hometown feel to it. What we have found is this community wants that personal attention. They want to come in and talk to the staff about books, and they want to hear about the programs that we’re having. It’s really, just like how the businesses in town tend to be, smaller and more casual and friendly and the library has always been that way as well.
“COVID was a challenge for all libraries and you know the interesting thing is that three days after COVID kind of closed us down, we held our very first Zoom meeting with the leadership team of the library. I didn’t even really know what Zoom was at the time and so we had a record of the first meeting and I just remember saying to the staff, ‘I don’t want to talk about what we can’t do. Let’s talk about what we can do.’ And every step that we made through that whole process was how do we figure out how to provide that service safely.”
As local individuals stayed home more during the pandemic, Meredith said the library helped those that needed Internet access.
“We put an antenna on the building that pushed our WiFi out into the parking lot so that even when we weren’t allowed to let people in the building, people could get to the Internet,” explained Meredith. “And then the next thing was people who didn’t have a computer or were struggling with computer access or devices, we were able to loan out WiFi hotspots. We made our meeting room into a socially-distanced computer lab so that people could sit at a computer. We would have somebody who could remotely control your computer from anywhere in the room to make sure that we could keep people safe if you’re having trouble so we wouldn’t have to stand right next to people if they weren’t feeling comfortable with that.”
Of course, people could still check out books as long as occupancy limits were maintained
“Our mission statement is, ‘Innovate, Educate, Enrich,’ and so I feel like we always try to come up with new ways to do things that are creative and to provide new services and be responsive to community need,” Meredith said. “Book people get very upset and very anxious if they don’t have enough books. They feel they’re going to run out of reading material. That’s really a problem for some people.”
At the end of the day, Meredith said that the CIDL is a community staple in Clarkston and is evolving with the times.
“We’re more than just books,” said Meredith. “You know, I think there’s a misconception that libraries were always a building full of books. Libraries have been offering summer programs for kids for over 100 years. We offer story times and things like that. People are starting to discover that this is a great place for families, and then once their kids are gone, they’re realizing they don’t want to stop coming to the library and they realize all these other things we’re doing. A library is really a center of lifelong learning. And so now, what the community is demanding is more meeting room space, more gathering events, things like that, so we’ve shifted to really fill those needs.”
For Meredith, it’s 25 years down. Are 25 more to come?
“I come in every day, and I love the library; I’m very passionate about libraries,” Meredith. “I come in every day and I feel like my goal is to do the best for the community. I’ve done a little bit of everything in the library. I want people to come in and have that same, almost magical experience that I have. The child where you walk in. It’s where moms and dads get to say yes. ‘Can I get another book? Yes.’ ‘Can we say for story time? Yes.’ It’s not based on the money you have in your pocket today. The whole point is there something for everyone. So the day I come in and I can’t figure out what to do next is maybe the day I’ll retire, but I feel like there’s always something new.
“My favorite time of the week is when the kids come over from the Early Childhood Center next door. They come in for story time once a week and they walk in and I see their eyes light up when they walk in and they see all the books. When I see a kid say, ‘Can we take this home?’ And mom says ‘yes’ and their eyes light up. That’s when what I do every day is all worth it. It’s totally worth it.”

TOP PHOTO: Julie Meredith has served as the director of the Clarkston Independence District Library since 2006, part of a 25-year career in libraries, and says she is passionate about serving the community’s needs as a whole. Photo: Matt Mackinder