In the public eye: Windham Public Library’s Jennifer Alvino

By Elizabeth Richards

Editor’s note: This is the first in an ongoing series of Windham and Raymond town employee profiles.

Jennifer Alvino, the library director for the Windham Public Library, has been working in libraries since high school. She became the director of the WPL a little over seven years ago and since then, she’s smoothly navigated the library through a renovation, providing services through a pandemic, and building community connections.  

The library is committed to meeting community needs. “I really appreciate being able to hear from and work with the community to determine what services they want from us, and to be able to turn that around and meet that need. That’s exciting and interesting for me,” she said.

Being a library director also involves a lot of customer service, she added. “I enjoy working with people. Librarians in general are a good group of people to work with. It’s nice to come to work every day,” she said.

Jennifer Alvino has served
as Windham Public Library
director for more than seven
years and is credited with
navigating the library through
a renovation, finding solutions
to continuing to provide services
during a pandemic, and building
and sustaining positive community
connections. FILE PHOTO

Libraries fill an important need in communities as gathering spaces, Alvino said. The WPL meets a lot of needs in the community, she said.  They provide access to broadband and help people find good, accurate information in a place that welcomes everyone. Libraries also don’t require any kind of payment, which is especially important right now, she said.

Serving as a community gathering place is currently a challenge due to the pandemic, Alvino said. “Over the last year we haven’t been able to gather. Our services are really limited in that we can’t communicate and welcome people the way that we used to,” Alvino said. For instance, they used to have an active group of middle school students who came to the library after school, which hasn’t been possible this year.

Space can also be a challenge to meeting community needs, Alvino said. Going back to the teens, she said, they need to consider whether they have enough space for them to gather.

When it comes to funding, she said, “The town has done a wonderful job giving us the resources that we need to provide our services. That’s really been helpful. Even through a tough last year we still were able to do what we needed to do.”

Alvino’s first goal for the immediate future is getting back to normal hours. Currently, the library is not open on Saturdays or weekends. They are working on hiring more staff which will allow them to return to pre-pandemic hours, she said.

Alvino is proud that the WPL was the second library in the state to re-open after everything shut down last spring. They reopened to the public at the end of May and have remained open for limited browsing and services since then. With some libraries in the state still not open to in person browsing, she said, she feels fortunate that they have been able to remain open with proper precautions in place.

Currently, visits are limited to 30 minutes. Computer services are available, and they recognize that sometimes people may need a little more time to apply for services or jobs, she said. “We are trying to accommodate as much as we can while still making sure that we’re interacting with people in a safe way,” she said.

The library also offers broadband internet that reaches to the parking lot. People often bring devices and work there, Alvino said. When the weather turns warmer, there will also be picnic tables around the building where people can use the broadband internet connection.

Another goal that Alvino has for the future is to get out into the community more, expanding outreach services like dropping materials off to homebound community members. She wants to find other community organizations to partner with, like they do with the Parks and Recreation department and local childcare facilities, she said.

A couple of years ago, Alvino said, the library had a table at the farmer’s market. She’d like to be at more community events like that, registering people for cards and checking items out. “I’d love to really be able to be out where the community is,” she said.

Alvino said she’s also proud of the renovation to the library that happened two years ago, which gave the space a much-needed facelift and allowed the library to move forward.

Her staff also makes her proud. “My staff is really, really amazing in terms of being flexible, especially this last year. They’ve really done an outstanding job keeping things running. I’m very proud of that,” she said.

Alvino wants people to know that the library staff is very approachable. “If there are needs people identify that we can help with we are certainly a place where people can approach us and talk about it,” she said. They’re looking forward to getting back to being able to hold gatherings and do in person programming, she said. While virtual programming continues, it’s just not the same, she said.

What people expect from the library has changed over time, Alvino said.

“I think we do strive to be all things to all people. When people walk through that door, they have a certain expectation of what they’re going to find. We’re always trying to meet that need,” Alvino said. “As expectations change, we need to make sure we’re flexible enough to do that.”