BY LANI HANSEN
REPORTER
Sarah Scarberry hopes to bring a dream of a culture-based UKB library to life.
TAHLEQUAH – The UKB Education Department in July welcomed librarian Sarah Scarberry, who will be overseeing the library in the education building.
Scarberry resides in Shady Point with her husband and five children. She’s been in the public school teaching system for nine years. She has taught at Heavener Public Schools and Cameron Public Schools. Scarberry also coaches for softball. She was hired on at UKB as a part-time employee because she teaches at McCurtain Public Schools. When school begins she will be going into her third year at McCurtain.
The librarian position was brought to her attention through Dr. Leslie Hannah, UKB Education Department Director. When he was Chairman of the English Department at Northeastern State University, Scarberry had sought assistance from him when she was preparing to enroll for graduate school for the library management master’s program.
“Back then he was sort of my advisor, so I was wanting to pick his brain,” Scarberry said about Hannah. “We got to talking about the library he wanted to open, and I told him sounds like a good plan.”
Having a public library through UKB is in the works, as it is the main goal for our new librarian. She wants it to be accessible for the community, especially if they are trying to make it a culturally based library such as Native American authors, books on Native Americans and UKB.
“That is what his (Dr. Hannah) goal is and I have now made it mine,” Scarberry stated of the upcoming library.
Currently she is working on making it easily accessible for the public to find materials that will be in the library on the computer through a catalog cloud.
“We are just trying to make it bigger and better for people,” Scarberry said.
Scarberry’s first day with UKB Education Department was July 18th. From the day she stepped foot inside the building, she’s either been cataloging the books in the library, working with the Education department on student intakes, getting the classroom ready for high school equivalency testing and adult education curriculum.
The center in the Education building updated their computer software so whoever comes in will be working on an iPad, instead of the desktops.
Although the library is still in the works of being opened, it will be available to the public. Scarberry is excited to help get it going and assist Dr. Hannah and the UKB Education Department.
