Libraries have been a big part of her life for the past 30 years, and this love affair was obvious to the council members who recently chose her as the new director of the Cortez Library.

Joanie Howland was by far the most "enthusiastic" of the candidates interviewed for the position, Mayor Joe Keck observed in announcing her selection.

Howland replaces Maryellen Brubaker, who retired in August, and her new position marks a return engagement at the library, since she’d worked there as an assistant librarian for 15 years previously, leaving in 1994 to obtain a master’s degree in library science from Emporia State University.

Howland has also worked at two college libraries, in 1969 beginning her career as a staff member of the University of Michigan Libraries and employed at the Fort Lewis College Library as a reference librarian for two years after getting her masters.

Her most recent job was a two-year stint as the Ute Mountain Ute librarian in Towaoc, where she was responsible for many improvements and a significant increase in the books available there.

"Each library has its own special strengths and challenges," she said recently. "The challenges here are a serious lack of space, which is being addressed, and a lack of money to buy new books." Library expansion plans that would more than double its size are currently being refined, and funds for the project have been included in the city’s capital construction budget, although grants are also being sought as a major part of the funding.