Co-Director, Amy Garoutte
You can call me: Amy
Where are you coming to the library district from? I’ve been in the valley for most of my life and in the Saguache community for ten years. I’ve spent time working as a CPA and a teacher but most recently I spent my time as a stay-at-home mom to my five-year old daughter.
What’s your role with the library district? Where are we most likely to see you and what will you be doing? You will find me in both the Saguache library as well as the Baca Grande library. I will be working hard to keep the administrative aspects of the library district up and running.
Favorite thing to do in the valley/area? I love spending time with my family. My husband, daughter and I enjoy hiking and playing outdoors. We also spend a lot of time with my mom and siblings who live in the southern part of the valley. We spend many weekends watching nieces and nephews play sports throughout the valley. I particularly enjoy camping or relaxing with my family and a good book near a lake or stream in the mountains west of Saguache.
Book or movie recommendation? Find your Unicorn Space: Reclaim Your Creative Life in a Too-Busy World by Eve Rodsky. This is my go-to gift or recommendation for friends who have recently retired or are going through another change in their life and are looking for inspiration to develop or find new passions.
Olympus, Texas by Stacey Swann – this book had me waking up early to see what would happen to this flawed family in a small Texas town. It’s a modern day take on the Greek myth of Orion.
Favorite literary genre? Literary Fiction
Fun fact about you? I like to sew and garden and cook.
Last book read? I’m currently reading Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton. It’s such a fun book that is a bit thriller-esque. The story takes place in New Zealand where environmental activists team up with an American billionaire to serve their own ends on another family’s property. Ideals and ideologies are tested at every turn.
Co-Director, Matt Pettigrew
Where are you coming to the library district from? I got my start working in libraries in St. Petersburg, Florida where I worked as a Library Assistant. Then, I moved to Portland, Oregon and worked at Multnomah County Library. During my 7 years working for the library in Portland, my roles included working as a Page, Clerk, and Library Assistant. After leaving Portland, I worked as a Library Assistant at a public library outside of Asheville, North Carolina. Upon leaving North Carolina, I landed in Crestone for about a year and eventually started working part-time at the Baca Grande Library in Crestone where I helped with the renovation of that location. I briefly moved up to Buena Vista to work at the Buena Vista Public Library before returning to a full-time position with the Northern Saguache County Library District.
What’s your role with the library district? Where are we most likely to see you and what will you be doing? My official title is District Manager, however I can see myself wearing many hats and contributing in the following ways: managing staff, customer service, materials processing, purchasing, programming. You are most likely to see me working at either the Crestone or Saguache branch, unless there is good food or live music involved. In that case, I’ll be there.
Favorite thing to do in the valley/area? Exploring all the beautiful areas that we are so blessed with here.
Book or movie recommendation? Book: Love and Other Pranks by Tony Vigorito.
Favorite literary genre? Non-fiction
Fun fact about you? I once went skydiving in New Zealand.
Last book read? Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art
Collections Curator, Acquisitions, & Cataloging, Lisa Anne Emery
You can call me: Lisa Anne
Where are you coming to the library district from? I grew up in Saguache and moved back in May of 2021 after being gone since 1995. I have been living in Medford, Oregon for the past 10 years.
What’s your role with the library district? Where are we most likely to see you and what will you be doing? My role with the library includes helping visitors feel welcomed and assisting them with their questions. I enjoy helping patrons find books and other resources. I work two days a week in Saguache and two days in the Baca Grande. In the Saguache branch, you can often find me working in the Colorado room. It’s a dream come true to have an opportunity to explore all of our wonderful Colorado resources in our library.
Favorite thing to do in the valley/area? I love exploring the mountains with my husband and beekeeping with my dad.
Book or movie recommendation? I highly recommend the book, The Professor & The Mad Man, by Simon Winchester. It’s an amazing story about the making of the first Oxford English Dictionary. A great movie adaptation came out in 2019 with actors Mel Gibson and Sean Penn.
Favorite literary genre? I love history and non-fiction books.
Fun fact about you? I’m a self-taught graphic artist and built a gaming computer to render my fractal art.
Last book read? My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok
Do you have any pets? We have three cats that we love very much: Tiggy, Bubba, & Nacho.
Where is the farthest you have traveled? My husband and I had the amazing opportunity to travel to Ireland in 2015. We can’t wait to go back someday.
Where is your favorite place in the world? Bandon, Oregon
Technical Services Guru and Community Outreach Coordinator, Eden Elderberry
You can call me: I go by Eden, but I’ve been called AJ, Mom, Babe, Momma, sister and yo…just please don’t call me sweetheart.
Where are you coming to the library district from? I just moved into the area from near Dayton, Ohio. I was the director of an artist co-op called the Center for Universal Artisans and Humanities.
What’s your role with the library district? Where are we most likely to see you and what will you be doing? I am the Technical Services Guru, and I’m still discovering what that means, exactly! You will find me at the Saguache and Baca Grande branches helping patrons, promoting library events and services and organizing artists for the rotating show that will be beginning at the Baca Grande branch in September.
Favorite thing to do in the valley/area? I love hiking and discovering new places here in Colorado. My family and I also enjoy setting up at the local markets, meeting new people and learning about the area. I am excited to begin gardening next spring in this beautiful and interesting climate. I also hope to find a place to set up my art studio.
Book or movie recommendation? I don’t have a book recommendation, but I love anything written by Kurt Vonnegut or Chuck Palahniuk and my movie recommendation would probably be Fight Club.
Favorite literary genre? I typically read non-fiction books.
Fun fact about you? I’m studying to be a meditation teacher and my plan is to go to prisons and teach people to meditate.
Last book read? This isn’t very romantic but it was The Fifty Dollar and Up Underground House Book by Mike Ohler.
What’s your sign and do you fit the stereotype? Taurus and yes, I love food and am secretly lazy.
Do you love Woody Harrelson movies? Sure!
Acquisitions & Children’s Programs, Uma Jolicoeur
You can call me: Uma
Where are you coming to the library district from?
My professional background is in book publishing – both design and marketing, so it’s wonderful to be surrounded by books again but not have to be focused on sales reports.
What’s your role with the library district?
Where are we most likely to see you and what will you be doing?
One part of my role is to facilitate children’s programming at the Baca Grande Library, so you can often find me playing with paint and pipe cleaners in the little office preparing for the next project, or in the community room having fun with groups of kids from the Crestone Charter School or SLV Boy’s & Girl’s Club.
I also order and catalog the adult, young adult and children’s books for the BGL and post about our new books on the district’s Facebook page so people will know what’s new on the shelves.
Favorite thing to do in the valley/area?
My partner and I are building a hybrid earthbag house in the chalets and I enjoy working on that project together when I’m not at the library. Like a lot of owner-builder homes in the Baca it’s a work in progress – but the opportunity to design and build our own place is a big part of what brought us to the area.
Book or movie recommendation?
Depends who’s asking! We’re a small district and we all do our best to get a sense of what our individual patrons enjoy so we can make personalized recommendations. In fact I often have specific patrons in mind when I’m deciding whether or not to purchase a particular book. I’m not sure people realize that about libraries in small communities – we’re buying books for you!
Favorite literary genre? Personally I read mostly historical fiction and non fiction along with a smattering of poetry and children’s books.
Last book read?
I often have a couple of different genres going at once, and my most recent group has been the incredible novel “James” by Percival Everett; Joy Sullivan’s new poetry book “Instructions for Traveling West” and a long overdue reread of “The Wind in the Willows” by Kenneth Grahame.
Visitor Experience Attendant, Renee Hazard
Welcome our new Visitor Experience Attendant
You can call me: Renee
Where are you coming to the library district from?
I have held several jobs over the course of my life. The library has been my favorite place by far. My coworkers are incredible people and the patrons have been absolutely lovely.
What’s your role with the library district?
My role is to help patrons feel welcome and to have a fun positive experience in the library. I also encourage them to look into our new books, DVDs, and programs. Then, of course, if they have time, we visit and laugh.
Where are we most likely to see you and what will you be doing?
You will see me in the Saguache branch visiting with patrons and helping them check out their most recent finds.
Favorite thing to do in the valley/area?
My favorite thing to do is to take in the views whether on foot or in the car.
Book or movie recommendation?
Mr. Nobody by Catherine Steadman
Favorite literary genre?
There are so many, I don’t want to choose one and have the others be sad they weren’t picked.
Last book read?
Magnificent mind at any age by Daniel G Amen and All things living and dead by Hayley Campbell
Both were fascinating
What 3 questions SHOULD we have asked? (And their answers!)
What is the most controversial topic to engage in? It is a tie between is pizza a breakfast food, would adding pineapple change your answer? and Monopoly or Uno, which has damaged the most relationships?
Visitor Experience Attendant, Everett Wilson
Welcome our new Visitor Experience Attendant
You can call me: Everett
Where are you coming to the library district from? I grew up in small-town Iowa, but after college I wandered around a bit from graduate school in Binghamton, New York, to the Jersey Shore, a Zen monastery deep in the Ventana Wilderness in California, and the San Francisco Bay Area, before finally landing in Crestone in 2010.
What’s your role with the library district? Where are we most likely to see you and what will you be doing? I work primarily at the front desk, checking books and dvds in and out. My favorite thing to do at work is hunt up the books that aren’t on our shelves for you, and order them in through interlibrary loan, especially if they’re hard to find.
Favorite thing to do in the valley/area? Hiking, camping, writing, reading, and meditating. Occasionally I like to sit down behind my drum set, and turn up the stereo loud enough that I can hear it over me.
Book or movie recommendation? I absolutely adore Richard Brautigan’s novel, In Watermelon Sugar. It has one of the most memorable opening sentences I’ve encountered in fiction: “In watermelon sugar the deeds were done and done again as my life is done, in watermelon sugar. I’ll tell you about it because I am here and you are distant.”
Favorite literary genre? Poetry, fiction, and memoir. Not necessarily in that order.
Fun fact about you?
Last book read? James by Percival Everett. This is another novel I’d highly recommend, a radical retelling of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the slave Jim’s point of view. In fact, Percival Everett is a writer who’s been around for a long time that I’m just now discovering, but is consistently great reading, and impossible to predict, and every time I open up one of his books I’m entranced.
What 3 questions SHOULD we have asked? (And their answers!)
- In what state are you wanted for arrest? Iowa. My first job out of college, I was an intern at the local newspaper in Indianola, Iowa. In Indianola, it is illegal to park on any street after midnight. But my job required me to work long past midnight helping to lay out the next edition of the paper before it went to press, and our office didn’t have a parking lot, so we all had to park on the street, and we all got parking tickets. Every week the editor collected all of our parking tickets, and took them to the police station to get them taken care of. Apparently one of my parking tickets slipped through the cracks, because after I moved to New York state, I received a summons to go to court, or pay the parking ticket. I was not going to do either. I started to write a response to the summons explaining the situation, but got busy, and forgot about it, until the judge issued a bench warrant for my arrest for “failure to appear.” So now, whenever I go back to Iowa, I’m very careful to drive the speed limit, because if I get pulled over, that outstanding warrant might show up…
- What’s your favorite German word? Affengeil. It’s a slang word. Literally translated it means, “horny monkeys,” but the way it’s used would be something more like “wicked good” or “kick-ass”: “Did you see that band at the bar last night? They were Affengeil!!!
- How many times did you pedal your bicycle into the back end of a parked car when you were a kid? Three.