'Boat, beach, book, burger and Buffett.' Meet Sherie Brown
Sherie Brown is the director of the Massillon Public Library. She got her start working in the field at the University of Cincinnati library in college but said she “really had no intention of continuing it as a career after college graduation.”
After spending a summer at home, Brown intended to move back to Cincinnati, with a plans of finishing grad school and publishing.
“However, in July 1979 there was a job posting in the Repository for someone with a musical background to select and catalog vinyl records for the Massillon Public Library,” Brown said. “Since I played the piano and knew the difference between Bach and the Beatles, I applied through an employment agency and was hired. From that start, I became the young adult specialist, then spent 25 years as the head of reference services and technology, and just when I thought it might be retirement time, was hired in 2011 as the director.”
She has been married 42 years to Gary Brown (an insurance agent, not the Repository columnist). They have two adult sons, Peter who lives in Baltimore, and Jeffrey who moved next door with his wife Brittany and grandsons Everett and Emerson.
She is a graduate of Hoover High School and earned her English literature degree at the University of Cincinnati. She also attended grad school at the Kent State University School of Library Science.
“There are two things I find the most fun (of being the director at the Massillon Library)," Brown said. "The first is mentoring younger library staff and seeing them flourish in their careers. The second is connecting people, like the informal organizing I do to bring leaders of Massillon nonprofits together. I also love answering a juicy reference question! The most challenging is keeping all the balls in the air. I always say my job is like air traffic control. And during COVID, we were building the plane as we were flying it. Oh, and maintaining an iconic building that’s partly 186 years old.”
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With all of the information online these days, why are local libraries still important?
Public libraries have never been about having books for people to borrow. Our purpose remains, as it always has, to level the playing field.
Some people in our community can afford to order all their books from Amazon, pay for high-speed internet, have their own scanners and printers, and subscribe to all the streaming content they want. For everyone else, the public library bridges that gap.
Secondly, the public library is the community living room, the last public space that welcomes you in and expects you to spend no money. When loneliness is so rampant in our world today, the library offers story times with other parents, a vinyl record club, book clubs, family and teen movies, and genealogy workdays among many opportunities to connect.
For some patrons, the library staff might be the only person they regularly interact with, especially those who get our home delivery. A community that supports those goals, like ours does, impacts lives.
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What drew you to work in this field?
It’s easy to say I always loved to read, but that alone wouldn’t keep someone in the field long ― there’s no time to read at a library job! But it’s a perfect fit for someone with varied interests because the job has changed constantly in almost 43 years.
Libraries are constantly adopting new technology, so I’ve been able to watch the transition from card files to the first online catalog (Yes, that info all had to be typed in!) to taking DOS classes to learn to boot up a phone directory on CD-ROM (amazing!) to getting the grant that brought in the internet (changing our lives forever), to helping bring a bookmobile to Massillon.
It never gets boring.
Would you share some of your favorite books/authors or passages that have drawn you to reading over the years?
The book that is never far from my mind is Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451.” It is haunting and prescient.
Bradbury warns that we don’t have to fear government censors taking away our books … we are doing it to ourselves when we choose other fluff as entertainment and cease to read. (Bradbury wrote the book on a typewriter at the public library!)
For a more recent love letter to books and libraries, I recommend Anthony Doerr’s “Cloud Cuckoo Land.”
What is your favorite game or sport to watch and play and why?
I am notoriously unathletic but have been known to do well and enjoy mini golf, if that counts!
As a spectator, I remain a UC basketball fan, because that was the sport when I was in college, and my UC roommate became one of the Bearcat mascots. The closest I got to athletic stardom is carrying her costume feet on the student shuttle bus.
If you could choose to do anything you want for an entire day, what would that be and why?
That would have to be boat, beach, book, burger, and Buffett (Jimmy). But I also enjoy a day trying out new recipes and entertaining family and friends. But, just the book would be fine!
Editor's note: Five questions with ... is a Sunday feature that showcases a member of the Stark County community. If you'd like to recommend someone to participate, send an email to newsroom@cantonrep.com.
This article originally appeared on The Repository: 5 questions with ... Sherie Brown, director of Massillon Library
