Schmitz Park Elementary parent Nancy Beckett sent that photo and this story to go with it:

Judi Lybecker Schmitz Park Elementary Librarian is retiring after 20 years.

We are hosting a celebration on Tuesday, June 9th from 3:30 to 4:30 at the Schmitz Park Elementary Library Current and past students, parents, friends and family are invited to attend and say goodbye and send Judi off on her next journey.

Judi Lybecker has been the librarian at Schmitz Park Elementary for 20 years and she is retiring at the end of this 2008-2009 school year. She shared the job for the first 17 years and then became full time 3 years ago. Her favorite part of being a librarian has been matching children to books that will get them excited about reading. Judi says that computers have brought the biggest change to libraries over the last 20 years.

She has observed that students are reading longer books now since the arrival of the Harry Potter 300+ page books. Before the Harry Potter books, authors and scholars thought that younger kids would not read 300+ page books and now there lots of them.

She noted that TV and video games have affected students attention spans, however, they are still checking out books as they always have done over the years. Judi’s advise to parents is not worry so much about what kids read as long as they are reading and it is age appropriate. When asked about her favorite children’s book she quickly replied that it was and is “Anne of Green Gables”. This book was her best childhood friend when she was growing up because she moved often. Judi loves to read and she enjoys lots of different types of books including Sookie Stackhouse books. She says that working at Schmitz Park Elementary has been a wonderful and she has enjoyed working with all the children, parents and staff.