By Janet Stoica

For over two years Karen Wall, Charlton Library Director, has steered the town’s public library into an exciting and multi-faceted direction. There are so many educational and stimulating programs available at the centrally-located facility that there are no excuses for its townspeople to not visit and experience the excitement. 

Director Wall didn’t start out as a library science major, however. She began her career in high-tech marketing with an industry leader in computer science where she developed a marketing library for the company.

“I had my marketing degree and was working in marketing development,” she said, “and I saw that there wasn’t a specific place for research so I started collecting information in a central location for anyone’s reference and that was my first library job. Fast forward to the year 2000 where I decided to get my Master’s Degree in Library and Information Science from the University of Rhode Island. I had been working for the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and I went to school for my Master’s Degree. I wasn’t out to be a librarian but I was interested in marketing information. At RISD I worked in technical services cataloging in their library.”  

After Wall’s graduation in 2003, she was offered a position with the Rhode Island State Archives which was a multi-dimensional position in the Administrative Records Program. She stayed with the program until 2008 until accepting an appointment with the Killingly, Connecticut library in the Reference and Adult Services Department.  

“I absolutely loved it,” said Wall. 

She then accepted a position with the Pearl Crawford Library in Dudley from 2013-2018. After a stint with the Mystic, Connecticut library through 2020 until after COVID, she assumed her present role as Charlton Library Director.

 “This is a great library,” stated Wall, “we have the best staff and the best community. We have lots of fun and exciting events on the horizon. In 2024 through June, we will be working on our five-year strategic plan to guide our library through 2029. We began this project in October 2023 and hope to finish by June. In January, we will be offering surveys on our social media sites of Instagram and Facebook as well as our library website and we will be holding focus groups in February. Following these activities we will distill our patrons’ feedback into our Mission, Vision, and Goals Objectives.”

In January, the library will be holding some interesting programs in the areas of organization and who doesn’t need that? On January 18, they will have a professional home organizer in attendance who will focus on Organizing and Decluttering and on January 22, will hold a program on Digital Organizing.  Every Tuesday, the library offers free movies with a 1 p.m. matinee and a 5 p.m. showing. Check their website for titles. Registration is not necessary. 

There are so many programs and offerings at the library they are too numerous to list here and their website is definitely the place to visit. There are book clubs, monthly genealogy workshops, and yoga classes. There is also an amazing children’s initiative called 1,000 Books Before Kindergarten to be launched mid-January where children sign up for a reading log with incentives awarded after they’ve read a certain amount of books, with a larger incentive given after the 1,000 book total has been reached. The Charlton Library is definitely the place to be. Snooze- you lose as they say!  Check them out so you don’t miss out. 

Charlton Public Library 40 Main Street, Charlton MA 01507.  Phone: (508) 258-0452.  Hours: 9:30 – 5:00 Mon/Wed/Fri; 9:30 – 8:00 Tues/Thurs; 9:30 – 3:00 Sat.; charltonlibrary.org