After more than 10 years at the Orillia Public Library, Meagan Wilkinson is excited to take the reins as its new CEO.
Wilkinson officially took the new role on Sept. 19, a day after the library board approved her for the position — which she had been working on an interim basis since former CEO Bessie Sullivan left earlier this year.
“I’m really excited. I’ve been a really big part of the Orillia community and the library here, so it’s really exciting to be able to continue to move it forward, making sure that it remains a safe and welcoming space for staff and the community,” Wilkinson, 41, told OrilliaMatters. “I’m excited to be able to contribute to those things.”
With 13 years of experience in public libraries — a decade of which has been spent in Orillia — Wilkinson has worked a variety of positions on her way to her new role.
Beginning on the circulation desk, she moved into a position as co-ordinator of circulation services, and also worked in the children’s department before going back to school in 2019 to get her master’s degree and prepare for a librarian role.
“I went back to school for my master’s of library and information services part time so that I was eligible to move up into those leadership positions,” she said.
Getting promoted to the CEO position is something Wilkinson said she was interested in, but not something she expected to happen as quickly as it did.
“It’s been a bit of a whirlwind. I did know that I was going to be approved as the acting CEO, but at that point I wasn’t really sure what that meant for me,” she said. “I had a goal of being a CEO eventually, but it was a little bit sooner than I had anticipated.”
Although it came as a bit of a surprise, Wilkinson has hit the ground running with her new position.
One of her goals is to develop a business continuity plan for the library, she said, noting cybersecurity issues have been common at public libraries through the pandemic.
“Following the pandemic and a lot of the cybersecurity breaches that a lot of public libraries have experienced, it’s a really good idea to have something in place so that we can ensure that we’re still meeting the needs of the community if something happens,” she said. “We … have lots of resources out there to help us create those plans, so that’s something big that I’m looking at.”
As she steps into the new role, Wilkinson said the library is also working on completing a Valuing Ontario Libraries Toolkit, meant to “show how libraries contribute to communities,” with a report planned for city council and the community.
