Melissa Carr knew at the age of 10 that she wanted to be a librarian.

DBRL director Melissa Carr will retire in January. A reception will be held for Carr at the Southern Boone Library on Dec. 14.

“My grandmother was a librarian and she spoke at all the men’s clubs. She got her hair done every week. She went to the National Library Association meetings and she had a friend in Hawaii who was a librarian. What was there not to like?”

Carr said with laughter. Carr will be ending her run as the director at the Daniel Boone Regional Library on January 15 and be replaced by Margaret Conroy (see story elsewhere on this page).

Under Carr’s direction in the past 21 years, the Daniel Boone Regional Library re-built its Columbia Library, initiated a library at Southern Boone – and then saw a stand-alone library built in recent years – and re-furbished a library in Callaway County.

But for Carr, being a library director was less about facilities and more about service to the community.

“In order to get the buildings, and we have fabulous buildings,” Carr said, “it requires an amazing staff, a board that saw that future and a public that supported that future. So, it’s working with all those pieces to move library services forward in the community.”

Carr has seen many changes in library services over the years, but she also would say that some things never change.

~ Check out the rest of this story & the New Library Director in today’s Journal ~

By Bruce Wallace