I have been working at the Public Library of Steubenville and Jefferson County since November of 2002, first as Assistant Director, and then as Library Director since September of 2018. Prior to that I was the Extension Services Manager for the Beaver County Library System in Pennsylvania, where against all odds, I proved that you could burn up your place of work (a bookmobile) and keep your job!
Here in Steubenville I have had the experience of expanding our Main Library with a new addition in 2016-2018, passed a levy in 2020, purchased a new bookmobile and shepherded the system through the Covid-19 pandemic. I have my monthly interactions with the charismatic and evangelical communities dealing with LGBTQ materials and displays, and led the library through our transition to a County District Library in 2023.
Moving here from Pennsylvania, I found the SEO consortium to be jaw droppingly amazing. I could click a mouse and receive a book from the exotic city of Findlay OH?
This year will be my tenth as the director of the Homer Public Library. It is a pleasure to serve the community and library patrons. The library continues to change with the times and the needs of the patrons. Being a member of the SEO consortium has not only been a benefit to the library but the patron’s overall library experience. I look forward to the opportunity to continue working with SEO to help improve library services for all Ohioans. Currently, I serve as the vice president for the Southeast Regional Library System board of trustees, and I am a member of the Ohio Library Council.
I have been the Executive Director of Chillicothe & Ross County Public Library since February, 2017. I am a native of Jackson County, Ohio and a graduate of Ohio University in Athens with a Master’s degree in Library and Information Science from Kent State University.
I started working at the Sylvester Memorial Wellston Public Library as a page/clerk through a summer training program while in high school and continued there part-time through college. After completing my Bachelor’s degree in Creative Writing, and most of a graduate degree (all but thesis), I took a full-time job at the Athens Public Library in 1997 as the Public Relations and Graphic Design Coordinator.
From 2000 to 2002, my future wife and I moved to Philadelphia where I was the Special Events Coordinator at the Library Company, a rare-books research and membership library founded in 1731 by Benjamin Franklin. By August of 2002, I had decided that I was ready to officially make a career of libraries and was accepted in the distance learning program at Kent State University.
I started my library adventure while a history major at Ohio University, working at the Zanesville Campus Library for 3.5 years. After receiving my MLS from Kent State, I became a reference/local history librarian at the Muskingum County Library System for nearly 3 years. While there, I would login to the SEO catalog to borrow books for our patrons. At the time I wondered, why aren’t we part of this great collaboration? In 1997, I began serving as Head of Reference at the Wood County District Public Library in Bowling Green (going from the hills to the flatlands of our state). In 2001, when our county-wide ILS company folded I advocated to my director that we join SEO. The collaborative, cost-sharing nature of SEO is an amazing service to our library patrons and to our Ohio taxpayers. When SEO migrated from Dynix Classic to Horizon (in 2005?), I served as a trainer leading sessions for library staff from across northwest Ohio.
Matthew Ross earned his MLIS from Kent State University in 2000, and began his career as an Adult Services Librarian in Garrett, Indiana. He returned to Ohio libraries in 2003, working as the Reference Librarian at Putnam County and then managing the Reference Department at Marion. In 2008, he became the Director of Bucyrus Public Library. Currently, he serves as Director of the Tiffin-Seneca Public Library. He is a member of OLC’s Legislative Network and has served as a NORWELD trustee. Matthew has seen all the benefits that an SEO membership can bring to a library and its patrons, and he is excited about the possibility of serving on the Advisory Committee to help maximize the consortium’s value.
Originally from the East Palestine area, I earned my MLS from Clarion University of Pennsylvania in 2011. I moved to Fayetteville, NC and began my library career as a Teen & Youth Services Librarian for the Cumberland County Public Library, working in that capacity for 3 years. I moved back to OH, where I worked for 2 years as a Librarian at Marion Public Library, working primarily with teens. In 2016 I started at the Leetonia Community Public Library as a Librarian. In 2017 I became the Director at LCPL. We joined SEO in 2019, and it’s been one of my favorite things that I’ve done at LCPL. I look forward to continuing to work with everyone at SEO and in the consortium, and would love to be part of the SEO Advisory Committee.