C-Falls grad is youngest state librarian in U.S.

Jennie Stapp says she grew up in libraries - first attending summer reading programs as a child, then doing research in junior high and high school, including for the high school speech and debate team.

Now she's the youngest state library director in the U.S. Stapp, who took over the job at the Montana State Library in Helena on Jan. 1 after working there for four years, was chosen to succeed Darlene Staffeldt, who spent 35 years at the library.

"They conducted a nationwide search," Stapp said about the state library commission. "I was hoping they were looking for someone young."

Jennie Guidi graduated from Columbia Falls High School in 1993. Her parents are both longtime educators - her mother Doris was a teacher, and her father Terry was a counselor.

After completing her bachelor's in international studies at Rocky Mountain College, she and her husband Ethan joined the Peace Corps and traveled to Bolivia, where they helped develop resource centers for women and children for 30 communities around Santa Cruz. It was while working in the library at Rocky Mountain College that Stapp's interest in libraries really took off.

"I learned about library science and that I could make a career out of it," she said.

Stapp went to the University of Arizona for a master's in library science. Her mother notes that Jennie graduated with a 4.0 GPA at both Rocky Mountain and Arizona.

The Montana state library maintains collections, circulates materials and answers reference requests just like a traditional library, Stapp explained, but the majority of the collections are now available online in digital form.

"I helped get the digitizing project off the ground with pilot projects in 2007," she said, adding, "I also spoke to Google."

Google, the giant Internet company, began an ambitious and controversial project several years ago with the goal of scanning nearly every book in the world for access online.

As the digital library director and chief information officer, Stapp took on the task of digitizing the 55,000 items in the state library's print collection. The five-year project is now expected to last seven to 10 years.

"We've done about 15,000 items," she said.

Those items are now available to the public online at www.archive.org, the Web site of San Francisco-based Digital Archive.

The company also operates the Wayback Machine, which has captured online information since 1996.

The Montana State Library also works closely with the Montana Historical Society in developing the Montana Memory Project.

Software, scanners and laptops are made available to local libraries for digitizing their collections.

The Montana Memory Project now boasts 300,000 digital items.

As the Columbia Falls community considers whether its library should be incorporated into First Best Place's Glacier Discovery Square on Nucleus Avenue, Stapp offered some general advice.

"Libraries are intended to be community centers, and to bring in outside groups," she said. "But they also need to protect their collections."

Stapp also noted changes in how libraries function.

"Libraries have the ability to affect change, so they need to draw in young children and teens, and provide a place for children to play," she said.

She also doesn't believe hard-copy books will disappear in the digital age.

"Publishing rates are higher than ever, especially with government documents," she said. "I recently visited with an economist who noted that the higher the level of Internet connectivity in a community, the higher the circulation rate at its library."

Electronic books have a symbiotic relationship with hard-copy books, Stapp said, increasing both library use and book sales.