In Claudia Boyer’s Williamsport-area hometown, the local library was in the high school. She remembers “lots of encyclopedias, lots of resource documents, lots of microfiches.”
“I can remember going there with a project team after school,” she says. “We’d go to different aisles and come back to a to big round table and compile everything.”
Today, Boyer engages roundtables of a different sort as Senior Vice President and Cash Management Team Leader for Mid Penn Bank. Mid Penn Bank’s employees, renowned for their community service, enjoy helping The Library’s locations, including those in northern Dauphin County, prepare materials for programs.
“Libraries are an important part of our lives,” Boyer says. “It doesn’t matter what stage of our lives we’re in The Library is always there.”
What are you reading now? I’m going on vacation and taking “The Johnstown Flood.” I really like David McCullough and historical books. My husband found a unique book, “Lincoln on the Verge: Thirteen Days to Washington,” so we’re going to share that. And I did tuck in “Truman” by David McCullough just in case we have some time. On the other side, I do like John Grisham. I like Nicholas Sparks, for the non-thinking part of reading.
Why those particular books? I like to go back in history. I like to know who came before us and a little bit about their lives, and how we got to where we are. At Mid Penn Bank, we also have Mid Penn University, which has its own library. It has a book of the month program focusing on professional development. I’m reading this month’s book, “Difficult Conversations,” because being in a managerial role, you sometimes have those, and you also have them with customers sometimes.
What’s your favorite thing about The Library? Particularly now, we need libraries. It’s important, now more than ever, that we support libraries because they serve as our centers of literacy and community building. So many people depend on The Library for the internet connections, or just to go and maybe lose yourself in the shelves.