Ramirez making most of opportunites at the Library

Selena Ramirez, Head Librarian of the Lamb County Library, moved to Littlefield from Fresno, California 15 years ago.

Ramirez has been the head librarian for two years, almost to the month. She said she has always loved reading and has been coming the local libraries since she was a kid.

“Since my mother, taking me and my sister to libraries as children, I always have incorporated that with my children. So, when we first moved here, I would bring my kids here for their children’s story time. Over the summers, I always made sure that my kids are continuing with the reading. I’ve just always made sure to incorporate libraries and reading books to my kids and so it’s just crazy that I used to always bring them here and now I’m working here,” Ramirez said.

Ramirez said she has always wanted to work at the library and when the opportunity came, she ran out and took it.

“ Honestly the position just came up for part-time and I ran over here as soon as I heard and I...talked to Ms. Candy for about an hour and started giving her a lot of ideas that I had for the library, for the future of the library and for the programs, community service with bringing in the high schoolers, their clubs and organizations and she said that I basically just talked myself into the job,” Ramirez said.

Ramirez said getting kids exciting about reading is incredibly hard until they find what they want to read.

“It’s just about being persistent and continuously trying to find something that they are going to enjoy,” she said. “Once you find the right type of books that they enjoy, their reading will start to take off.”

Ramirez said she is currently reading “Spanish Love Deception” by Elena Armas and she is reading a couple of books for her book challenges.

“While I’m trying to do my book club challenge for Good Reads and I’m near the end of that, but here at the library at the beginning of the year, we offer these free calendars…and it has a book challenge on that and so those challenges...have just fun things,” she said. “Like a nonfiction book, a book set in school, a book by an author under 30, or a book with an author with your initials, a book cover that has your favorite color on it. I still have 14 to go, so my nightstand is full of books right now of what I’m trying to hurry up and squeeze in.”

Ramirez said a great way to achieve her goal of finishing her book challenges, is to listen to audio books.

“Audios are great. I always have a book on audio and then I have several physical copies on me at all times,” Ramirez said. “My kids got to school in Sudan, so on the drive there I’m listening to whatever music they’re switching between but on the way back, I listen to audio. If I have a task to do here, where we already know what we’re going to do and we’re focusing on that, we put on audios. If you ask Peach, I was doing my work throughout the day yesterday just cracking up at this book all by myself.”

Ramirez said her favorite genre is historical fiction, because of the directions it can go in.

“ There’s so many different ways that that can go but most historical fiction is based on actual history,” she said. “They’re going to give you a lot of facts and a lot of true things that happened and then add in the story.”

Ramirez said one of her favorite authors, currently, is Kristin Hannah.

“One of my favorite books is the Nightingale. It’s a beautiful story and it’s actually being turned into a movie this next year. It’s about two sisters during WWII and Dakota and Elle Fanning are going to play the sisters. I’m super excited,” she said, enthusiastically.

Ramirez said her favorite part of being head librarian is being able to get to know the people in the community and reaching out to the youth.

“Especially reaching out to the youth,” she said. “We have a lot of kids programs and it’s just so much fun to work with the kids. Yesterday, we had toddler time and we had 30 people in here...I think, the youngest was under a year to three-years-old, but the 30 also included the parents and Kingdom Kids from across the street. Watching the kids sing along or do the crafts, I love that. Just like we have our summer reading program, where we can have up to 80 kids in here, and it’s chaos but it is so much fun.”

Ramirez said reading is important because it is the core of life.

“Reading is really the core of our lives, because it branches out into everything else in our lives and it becomes a part of who we are. It becomes a part of our personality, I believe as well. It creates our imagination and creativity comes from reading so it’s just so important,” Ramirez said.