Choreographing a Life--Kimberly Bolan Taney

KIMBERLY BOLAN TANEY, Webster Public Library, NY

When Kim Taney isn't tending 80 workstations on the Webster Public Library's local area network, supervising the pages, working the reference desk, and advising libraries on how to improve teen services, she teaches ballet and choreographs her dance studio's productions. Choreography is a useful skill for someone with such a multifaceted life.

Taney says people assume we become librarians because we love books. She does love books, but even more she loves connecting people with the information they need—and the ways technology makes those connections easier.

Though currently a network administrator, Taney's first job out of library school was as young adult specialist for New York's Pioneer Library System. Never having forgotten how hard it is to be a teenager, she enjoyed listening to teens, learning what libraries could do to create a warm and welcoming environment for them. She eventually left the job, but she continued to work on behalf of teens as an independent consultant, presenting workshops on how to design spaces for young adults. She crystallized what she had learned in Teen Spaces: The Step-by-Step Library Makeover (ALA, 2003).

Most people would consider Taney's life to be insanely hectic as is, but as her former boss Jennifer Morris, director of New York's Pioneer Library System, says, Taney has 'a tendency to overcommit herself.' So it's no surprise to learn that Taney is now writing a second book and planning to teach a course on library services to teens at the University of Buffalo this coming fall.

If, as Morris says, Taney 'doesn't know how to not get an A-plus in everything she does,' it certainly does work out well for those of us who benefit from her contributions to the profession.