High Five: Librarian Michelle Booth

Thu., Jan. 31, 2008

The Spokesman-Review

Librarian with powers

If I need help finding information I can’t scrounge up, I hope Michelle Booth is working at the Spokane Valley Library. Like her favorite fictional detective created by Marcia Muller, kind and soft-spoken Sharon McCone is an expert at finding answers.

Once she located a novel for me within seconds when I couldn’t remember the title or author, only that it involved North Carolina and birds. This is only one of many jaw-dropping experiences with the amazing Booth.

The reference librarians at the library are all excellent, but Booth is practically a living search engine. She finds research invigorating, thriving on connecting people and books. “Sometimes they need to send us home because we spent too much time trying to locate one book. But that’s the joy of this job, that I get to do that.”

An adult reference librarian and supervisor, Booth has worked 20 years at the library and participates in 24/7, a live worldwide network of reference librarians (see www.scld.com).

She looks forward to working in the new Valley library (now being planned) and, when retired, remaining a library page. “It’s just a happy place to work; it’s very comforting to be around books. I’ve promised I’m not leaving this place.”

Whew! Because, Michelle, I need you to find something.

Deborah Chan

Spokane Valley

Blessings to two strangers

It was dark when my car got struck in the snow just off A Street. I was alone, miles from home, husband out of town and no cell phone. My wheels, spinning like a race car’s, defined the image “going nowhere fast.”

I was surprised and relieved when the first car to pass stopped. The young man pushed. He tried several tactics. But I was stuck so badly, one strong man wasn’t enough. Finally I told him to go. He’d given his best, and I was grateful. He said, let’s try one more time. That’s when the second young man stopped to help. One push from the two of them, and I was out.

These guys were on their way somewhere, had their own problems to solve and schedules to keep. But they put everything aside to help a stranger. What could have been a major ordeal for me, they turned into a brief glitch. You’ve heard the clichés, “made my day,” “restored my faith in humanity,” etc. but none of them describe the fullness of gratitude, joy and hope that such an act of kindness engenders. I pray they receive a hundredfold what they have given.

Mary F. Farrell

South Spokane

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