Shakopee Library Branch Manager Barb Hegfors Is Closing Book On Storied Career

Press release from the City of Shakopee:

December 9, 2020

After 43 years with the Scott County Library System, librarian Barb Hegfors is closing the book on a storied career.

With ongoing COVID precautions and limited library services, this is not how the longtime Shakopee Library branch manager imagined her final year. But adapting to change is something to which Hegfors is well accustomed.

Hegfors joined the Scott County Library system in 1977, working first in Savage and then also in Shakopee for several years. She became the Shakopee branch manager in 1989 and watched the library adapt to its customers' changing needs.

“What I enjoy most are the people and the interactions and helping them find what they need,” she said. “Each day is just a little different.”

Hegfors remembers the early years when customers could check out 8 MM films and projectors – even framed photos to hang on their living room walls. The old catalog system moved to microfiche and now is fully electronic, allowing customers to order materials from the comfort of home.

The library itself has become a gathering place where students reserve study rooms, community groups meet and visitors access the Internet. Overall, technology has been the biggest change, said Hegfors, noting how the library’s reference collection has shrunk over the years.

“I still like the physical book in my hands, but [our ebook collection] offers so much variety that we can’t have on our shelves in the building,” she said.

Despite all the changes, this past year has been especially unique, and Hegfors misses the chance to say goodbye to the customers and volunteers she has gotten to know so well. She fondly recalls volunteer brunches and wonders what the teenagers who staffed the summer reading program for so many summers are doing these days. She hopes many will stop by the Shakopee library before her official retirement Dec. 30.

Hegfors also expresses appreciation to her staff and upper management who have supported her career. As she prepares to turn the page on this chapter, it is a little bittersweet.

“It doesn’t seem like 43 years since I’ve started, but the time has gone by extremely fast.”

This story originally appeared in the Winter/Spring 2020 Hometown Messenger.

This press release was produced by the City of Shakopee. The views expressed here are the author’s own.