COMMUNITY NEWS
Yolande Wilburn to head Santa Cruz Public Libraries
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By Jondi Gumz
olande Wilburn is poised to be the search functions for patrons and next director for the Santa Cruz reduce staff time spent on catalogue Public Libraries, sucmanagement. She was ceeding Susan Nemitz. involved in the California Pending approval Dec. Library Association’s 2 by the SCPL joint powers Advocacy & Legislation authority board of directors, Committee, proposing Wilburn would be the first library database-sharing woman of color to the lead for youth, which State the system in its 153-year Librarian Greg Lucas then history. Her first day would championed. be Jan. 3. Wilburn grew up Santa Cruz Public spending many hours at Libraries consist of 10 the Chicago Public Library. branches, a $15 million Later, she worked there as Yolande Wilburn budget, 98 full-time equivpage. She earned a bachealent staff, 438,466 items in the collection lor’s degree from the University of Illinois. and circulation of 672,684 for physical items She got a master’s in library and and 467,875 for electronic materials. information science at San Jose State UniWilburn’s specialty is meeting the versity before returning to Chicago Public needs of the community via library services. Library where she won a MacArthur FounShe comes from Torrance, population dation grant to create the library’s first 146,860, where she was city librarian for two makerspace — which won the 2013 Social years, overseeing six branch locations with Innovator Award. 573,000 items, circulation of 658,246 and a She went on to work at Higher Col$7 million budget. leges of Technology in Dubai, United Arab During the pandemic, she read Emirates, where students commonly used children’s storybooks in “virtual sto- ebooks. rytime” on YouTube and implemented “Wilburn” page 25 Polaris and Vega software to improve
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