NEW SALEM — It’s been many years since Tracie Shea has lived in Dundee, Michigan, but she sees many similarities between her little hometown and the town of her current employment.
Shea is settling in as the New Salem Public Library director, a position she started on July 19 to take over for Diana Smith, who retired in the fall after 23 years on the job.
“The more I became familiar with New Salem, the more I thought it was a good fit,” she said. “I’m really impressed with how engaged the community is with the library. Just a great group of trustees, the Friends group is just, I think, incredibly active and really well-organized and functional. And that’s just a really neat thing to step into. It just opens up a lot more opportunity.”
She will be paid to work 19 hours per week.
Shea, 53, lives in Hardwick, where she worked in the farmers cooperative exchange’s back office for about 2½ years.
“(My) library experience, professionally, is not a lot. Really my primary work experience was in the office admin in the nonprofit sector,” she explained, adding that many of those skills are transferable.
Shea has also been a trustee and Friend of the Paige Memorial Library in Hardwick. She staffed the circulation desk, handled some programming and was briefly an acting director there. She also volunteered with the Worcester County 4-H Program.
Shea said she plans to get better acclimated to her new role before considering any changes to the New Salem Public Library. But, she said, she has learned that children and adults are similar in that they enjoy stimulating activities that are vastly different from what they do in school or at work.
“Kids and grownups are different, but we’re the same in a lot of ways, too,” Shea said.
She came to New England to attend Mount Holyoke College, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in English literature and had a stint in the corporate world before having children. She said she is a “fairly recent empty-nester.” Her oldest child is in graduate school at Georgia State University and her youngest is a rising senior at Eckerd College in Florida.
Shea mentioned everyone in New Salem has been incredibly welcoming and friendly.
“I think the thing I’m most excited about,” she said, “is starting to get more involved in programming because it’s, I think, really where you get to know the community and meet people and get to hear all their stories.”
Reach Domenic Poli at: dpoli@recorder.com or
413-772-0261, ext. 262.