BY MILES LAYTON

As most folks who visit the Shepard-Pruden Library know, the library’s director, Jared Jacavone, is leaving us.  

In recent weeks, when I saw the library’s job posting, I knew change was coming to Edenton’s favorite library — Jared scored a big job as director of the Thompson Public Library in North Grosvenor Dale, Connecticut.  

Before you get to wondering why Jared would want to live above the Mason-Dixon Line in New England, well, he grew up in Rhode Island, where his family lives.  

Having never known anyone from Rhode Island, I had to ask Jared – how big is Rhode Island? Is it true that some ranches are bigger than this state?   

“To talk in terms of the geographic square mileage of Rhode Island, take Washington County, Tyrrell and maybe a little bit of Dare and that’s about it,” he said. 

My response — “Wow!”  

Anyway, Jared’s last day is Feb. 25, and he’ll start working at Thompson at the beginning of March. 

Good luck! We’re going to miss you!

Jared oversees a library with six employees and an annual budget of around $225,000. The library has an annual circulation of around 62,000 materials – up from 55,000 prior to the pandemic in 2019. The Library currently has 35,000 individual items in its collection, which is up from 28,000 when Jared first started at Shepard-Pruden.   

“We’ve been able to increase our collection size here at Shepard Prudent thanks to working with the county commissioners, the Board of Trustees, and our Friends of the Library and securing new shelving units for the facility and really securing an increased budget to help with us,” he said.  

Moreover, Jared has pushed for new books and other offerings so the library doesn’t resemble an airport’s bookstore – stocked with nothing but novels from John Grisham, Nicholas Sparks and James Patterson.  

“I can say happily now that at least a third of our budgets of what we spend per month in terms of our collections comes directly from patron input,” he said. “And the rest of it’s like a mixture of meeting the best sellers, the top books of top books and new releases in addition with anything that meets updating in our collection.” 

As to who’ll become the next Jared, he said the Library’s Board of Trustees has initiated a search for his replacement and no interim director has been named as yet. 

“I’ve given my staff instruction as to how to run the library,” he said. “I am right now ensuring a smooth transition, getting acquisitions done for the next few months. I’m getting programs lined up for the next few months or so. Schedules are all set for the next few months as well.”

Jared started working for the Pettigrew Regional Library System in 2018 – with his first four years of duty at the Tyrrell County’s library in Columbia. 

Back story — When Columbia’s paper The Scuppernong Reminder ceased publication, the Chowan Herald began coverage of events in Tyrrell, parts of Washington and even Hyde counties so that these places wouldn’t be news deserts. Because Jared commuted from Edenton to Columbia, I gave him a few newspapers to share with our cousins living on the other side of the Albemarle Sound. Of course, after Nicole and I left, the company dropped that ball just like everything else it has touched. 

Shout out to Tyrrell County from Jared — “Tyrrell County, having worked over there, yes, smaller community, but they’re a community that very much cares about having those resources available for the public. And having worked over there, I liked that small town where you have your regular people who come in. For their community, they take notice of what things are available and it may be a small population to serve, but when you do something, it really makes a difference with them.”  

Also, Jared wrote a popular column promoting Tyrrell’s library and later at Shepard-Pruden’s library – a place with friendly and helpful librarians, offers a Harry Potter Day and Armchair Travelers series. Since the library is a core part of our community, Edenton and Chowan County are very welcoming.  

“Well, one thing I’ll say that I really like about this community and coming from up North is – Edenton is a little bit of a change of pace,” Jared said. “Everybody is just so community oriented around here. Everybody comes in and everybody’s very active. And I do like, as a librarian, being able to have people come in as regulars and always be very interested in what’s going on in the library and wanting to volunteer and wanting to be a part of the friends.”  

Here’s this anecdote that Jared shared about helping someone – a widow who was trying to navigate filing taxes.   

“I remember answering a question from a patron — an older lady in her sixties — who came in and her husband had passed away and it was tax season and she had never done taxes before because it was always her husband taking care of it. And at the same time she wasn’t really adept at working with technology.”

Jared continued, “So I sat down with her and I said, this is what we’re gonna do. We had the forms and everything here, but she needed a specialized form too. So I sat down and showed her how to navigate on the IRS website and get her to the forms that she needs and be able to print that. She was over the moon happy and saying ‘thank you so much. I didn’t know what to do, didn’t know where to go with this.’ For me, that was one of the things that I love about librarianship and being able to help people and bring those resources directly to them.”

Thanks Jared for your service to our community!