New library director named for Rusk

RUSK – Christine Camplain, a familiar face at the Singletary Memorial Library in Rusk, recently was appointed as the library's new director.

"I've been working here for seven years with Amy (Walley, her predecessor), and I kind of just slipped into (the new role)," Camplain said.

She grew up in Palestine, moving to Rusk 18 years ago, and hiring on with the City of Rusk 14 years ago as a utility department employee. Camplain said she began working for the library seven years ago.

Along with naming her as the new library director, city officials also instituted new library hours designed to serve a broader range of people and a larger library staff."

Camplain is the sole full-time library employee, assisted by part-time employees Evelyn Stewart, Abby Steed and Susie Shields.

"This will give us much more flexibility," she said.

The new library hours are Monday and Thursday, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday, 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m; and Saturday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

The new schedule will allow patrons to better utilize services of printing, copying, emailing, faxing and checking out material.

"If you have working parents who need to get their child to the library, and we're only open until 5 o'clock, you can't get home and up here before that time," she said. "Now, if that child needs to print stuff out, this will give them a Monday, a Thursday or a Saturday to make it in."

By extending hours, library employees hope that patrons will discover that libraries are so much more than a place to check out books, she added.

"You can go job hunting, find material for school work, read for leisure or for school," Camplain said. "Most of our childrens' books, our junior and young adult books have AR (Advanced Reading) points in them, so they can check them out and have it counts toward school."

Also new to the local library is a Saturday movie program.

"When it is 45 degrees outside and raining, folks can come in, maybe grab a book or watch the movie that's showing." she said, noting that special programming will be tied into events and holidays, such as Scare on the Square, Thanksgiving and Christmas.

"On Monday and Tuesday of Thanksgiving week, when the kids are out of school, we have movies planned for those days. In December we'll have classic Christmas movies playing in the meeting room and childrens’ movies in the children's area while they're on Christmas break," she said.