Neighbor Spotlight: Hampton library volunteer's dedication to service helps keep the pages turning

Editor’s note: Neighbor Spotlight is a monthly feature that aims to let our readers learn more about the people in their communities who are working to make them a better place, who have interesting stories to tell or who the community feels deserve “15 minutes of fame.” If you would like to nominate someone as a Neighbor Spotlight, email Neighborhood News Network editor Katie Green at kgreen@triblive.com.

If you’ve perused or borrowed something from the collection at the Hampton Community Library, Jody Janovsky literally had a hand in making sure you got what you came to find.

For the past two decades, Janovsky, 70, has quietly performed one of the library’s most crucial duties — ensuring that the 31,000 books, periodicals, DVDs, music and other items are where they should be.

She spends her days at the library cataloging and preparing new items that come for circulation along with entering data for material that gets checked in and out.

And while she realizes the importance of keeping the collection in check, she loves any opportunity to greet and help patrons.

“If I see someone who looks a little perplexed, I try to help them locate what they’re looking for or try to recommend something that might be of interest to them,” she said. “I love to read and am always happy to suggest things people might enjoy.”

Helping children who might not be keen on reading is one of the great pleasures of the work she does, Janovsky said.

“I like to talk to them and find out what they like,” she said. “I think you can help someone get on the path of loving to read if you take the time to help them find things that interest them.”

And when kids are fickle, Janovsky know just what to do.

“I’ll whisper to them: ‘Just take it home, you can always bring it back if you don’t like it,’” she said.

Janovsky said she first got involved with volunteering at the library while she was teaching preschool.

“I think it’s important to give back to the community,” she said. “Living in Hampton has provided our family with wonderful sporting activities, great parks, a pool and so many other wonderful things. So I was looking for an opportunity to do something in return.”

She settled on volunteering at the library after spending time there with a coworker to move books from its previous location to the community center.

“We wanted to know what books they had for the kids we were teaching, so we volunteered to help pack up and move them,” she said.

In addition to working with the library’s system to track items in the collection, Janovsky has expanded her role by tweaking how items are organized and displayed.

“We redid the entire children’s section,” she said. “Rather than having the books in alphabetical order, we put them in categories. So if child comes in looking for books about dinosaurs or princesses, they’ll find them all in one spot, which I think has been really helpful.”

When guest speakers appear at the library, she makes sure that materials related to the subject are on display.

“If someone is giving an origami or quilting demonstration, people attending are going to want to read more about it,” she said. “So we try to make it easier for them by putting out the items we have.”

The library’s director, Suzanna Krispli, said Janovsky is the kind of volunteer “every boss would love to have as an employee.”

“She not only loves the library and looking for ways to spread the word about us, she faithfully comes in to make sure that the materials are getting out to the public,” Krispli said. I’d love to have a dozen more volunteers like her.”

Krispli, who is the library’s only paid employee, said Janovsky was the only volunteer who has been able to make it to the library during the pandemic.

“We had a wonderful group of four women who volunteer with us, but due to circumstances, three of them have not been able to come here,” she said. “But Jody has been here whenever she’s scheduled, which has been immensely helpful to us.”

Janovsky said helping to keep the library running smoothly is important to her.

“It’s a place where anyone can come to enrich their mind,” she said. “And it’s especially important to be here for our senior citizens, who often don’t have many other places to go to spend some time. The library is a place where you can get a lot for very little.”