IGARD Member of the Month for January, 2019 - Heather Ogilvie

Please meet Heather Ogilvie – the Alzheimer’s and Related Dementias Interest Group’s (IGARD) Member of the Month for January, 2019!   

I understand that you work for the Bay County Public Library in Panama City, FL.  Can you tell us more about your position there and what it entails?

I am the Outreach Librarian for the Northwest Regional Library System in the Florida Panhandle, serving Bay, Gulf, and Liberty Counties.

Bay County Public Library Outreach began in 2016 with a concern that we were not meeting the information needs of our entire community, specifically, the non-users. After being a happy branch manager in public libraries for 19 years, I was asked to become an outreach librarian, assess the community at large, look for gaps, and develop services in accordance. The challenges were easy to find. Indeed, it was immediately evident that people who can't, don't, or won't use the library are everywhere you look when you step outside the buildings.

I began by identifying and learning how to deliver the real magic of the library experience, without the buildings or the budget. I work with all ages. From family storytime in the Mall, afternoons at the rec center, curriculum enrichment in the schools, to Senior Conversations in all sorts of senior living arrangements, I have had an amazing experience. I have countless partnerships and find the public library is welcome to a seat at every table. My work with seniors has plunged me headfirst into the world of dementia. I am amazed at how great is the need and how positive the response to my work. In 2018 I was awarded the Florida Library Association's Maria Chavez Hernadez Award (Libraries Change Lives) for my work with seniors in our state.

Last summer you started a term as Co-Chair Elect for IGARD.  How did you become interested in working with people living with dementia?

I was so excited to read about Mary Beth Riedner’s work with people with Alzheimer’s. (I mean literally jumping up and down to learn that people with dementia can retain the ability to read!) I could not wait to try! Armed with Tales and Travel Memories literature I walked the streets knocking on doors, visiting senior centers and assisted living facilities. While I was met by staff, administrators, and caregivers with far less enthusiasm than I brought with me, I quickly found that I had only to stop a few minutes, visit with seniors, unpack a few books, art supplies, puzzles, and fidgets, and I was invited to come back every week.

How do you envision the role for librarians in the future serving those living with dementia?

Our first role is advocacy. As champions of lifelong learning, representing the lost, or invisible, members of our community is our basic responsibility. Libraries need to take a leading role in recognizing that a climate of inclusion, a culture of shared learning, from birth to death, establishes a foundation for strong communities and smart growth. Persons of all ages and stages of growth and development make up the fabric of our community, and our community is the real membership of our public libraries. As always, we must speak and model practices that presuppose inclusivity and open access to a learning environment as a given in our society.

Beyond advocacy, is the exciting work of developing library services to those living with dementia, including the caretakers, extended families, and our professional partners. We can brighten every day in the life of our community, enlighten ourselves and our village, as it were, making every moment count, birth to death.

Hurricane Michael hit Panama City last October.  How did this affect your library and you personally?

We have been devastated.  Hurricane Michael hit Bay County hard. Life as we know it will not be the same. Northwest Regional Library System sustained substantial damage, lost one branch, as well as trained staff, hours of service, books, and materials. Bay County Public Library is currently hosting FEMA, Small Business Association, University of Florida IFAS Extension, and United Way of Northwest Florida. We are open to the public with slightly limited hours, offering FREE Internet, WiFi, copy, print, and fax services.

Personally, I lost the top of my roof, trees, porch, outdoor laundry room, yard, car, and fence. I was temporarily reassigned to work for Bay County Emergency Operations Center developing the Volunteer Reception Center, connecting volunteers with organizations who need their help in the recovery effort. It has been different and far more bureaucratic than I would choose, but an adventure nevertheless, and I do believe wholeheartedly in change as a way of life.

We are, still, however, THE LIBRARY. Our mission remains, to build a stronger community through inspiration, education, and comprehensive information provision. BCPL Outreach is poised to take library services back out on the road, reach the people where they are now with flexible pop up library events for all ages, in new and unexpected locations. We are prepared to spend 2019 completely outside familiar lines. Our goal is to build resilience through strengthening our critical thinking skills and elevating compassion, showing up and engaging our community in unexpected and widespread conversation, leading adventures in reading, art, and creative play. And the good news is, I have been given the go-ahead to return to Library Outreach services!

Our community needs a library now, maybe more than ever before. Here is my plan: Outreach will be the boots on the ground library in our city.  Recovery from a disaster of this scope will be complex and difficult. Our goal is to cultivate resilience through critical thinking and compassion. The main power source is TALK, showing up and jumping into unexpected and widespread, deliberative, conversation, learning to listen, and learning to talk. The elements of engagement include exploring cultural connections, encouraging respect through sharing experiences. We will celebrate the power of reading through comprehensive book-based learning for all ages, with reading aloud, books to take home, books to own, books to surprise, inspire, and grow, books to replace what we have lost. We have so much to learn in the aftermath of this event. We need science, we need understanding and kindness, we need compassion for one another. How fortunate that these are the standard outcomes of great library programming.

Is there anything else you would like to share?

My first goal with Bay County Public Library Outreach is to help people, improve the quality of life for our residents, and build a stronger community.

My second goal is to continue professional growth, learning new ways to help, new techniques and technology, and in so doing, bring the real transformative power of our library into full public view. Outreach programming is marketing ALIVE. We don’t just tell the stories of libraries’ changing lives, we perform it all over town. I hope to weave into the fabric of everyday life, here in Bay County, the essential presence of the public library. I hope people will continue to turn to the library when they have questions, to seek the library when they wish to learn something new, and that people will support the library with their words and with their VOTES when initiatives arise. I hope the library staff will continue to embrace innovation and look always toward designing dynamic user-driven programming inside and outside the library. I hope those who have the opportunity to work with me in Outreach will see the absolute value in recognizing and responding to the future as it barrels down upon us with barely a moment to pause.

 My journey into dynamic community engagement has been a voyage of discovery. Hurricane Michael has been another kind of trip. I am breathless with the staggering loss every day and wandering in a state of constant confusion. Where did my brain go??? The simplest tasks are difficult, thinking clearly is practically impossible. I mourn the loss of trees and a sense of place. All landmarks are gone or drastically disfigured, save the Gulf itself. I live in a new flat land of rubble and an impossibly bright sky.

Respectfully submitted,

Mary Beth Riedner

Membership Chair, IGARD