By Anita Weier
Friends of Lakeview Library
Carra Davies worked at Lakeview Branch Library in 2013 as a part-time library assistant under the mentorship of then Librarian Katie Scharf. “I loved Lakeview,” she recalled. “The library is a real part of the neighborhood.”
She then became a multisite library assistant, which had the advantage of being a full-time job, though there was lots of jumping around to wherever she was needed. In 2015, she became an adult services librarian at Alicia Ashman Library, a post she held until coming back to Lakeview in 2019.
“I like the culture here,” she explained. “People know each other, and local people do programming. A woman came in recently and said, ‘You came back!’”
Eastside resident Davies, 45, is originally from New Jersey. She came to Madison for graduate school 17 years ago and stayed, as many do. She shares her life and two cats with her partner of 16 years, Paul.
In the past, she had worked in a corporate job but decided that was not what she wanted to do with her life. She was a high school English and Spanish teacher for a while and liked the students but not the administrative tasks. She also served as a teacher trainer in the Peace Corps in Mongolia. After that 40-below winter, she doesn’t mind Madison weather.
At Lakeview, Davies plans to focus on senior programs, as she did at Ashman. For instance, a program that she started in September gives refresher driver training and provides a CarFit program, “Some have lost height; others are using their spouse’s car,” she said. “We want to keep more seniors on the road as safely as possible.”
She plans to keep popular programs such as yoga and a cookbook club, where people share recipes and sit and eat together. She also appreciates a monthly joint program with the Willy Street Co-op in which information is provided on topics such as herbal and thyroid issues.
Davies enjoys participating in the Neighborhood Resource Team, where representatives of city departments and nonprofit agencies, as well as apartment managers and others get together to help the neighborhood.
Davies now leads the first Thursday of the month evening book club at the library as well as a book club at NewBridge at the Warner Park Community Recreation Center. She is an eclectic reader, enjoying most genres but not especially mystery books. “I like Southern literature,” she noted.
She appreciates the assistance given to the library by the Friends of Lakeview Library. “It is nice to have an independent group with another set of eyes that lets us know what the community wants,” she said.
Davies is especially excited by the programs organized by the children’s librarian and the new teen librarian. The library also has a new comfort room which can be used to calm an upset child or provide a place for nursing in private.
“We want to offer something for everybody,” she said. “It is a pleasure to come to work,” Davies added. “We have good workers and a good public.”