Meet Bellevue Librarian Debra Westwood: New Cluster Manager of the Bellevue, Lake Hills and Crossroads Libraries

Modern libraries need more than just the Dewey Decimal System to function properly, something that librarian Debra Westwood knows well.

A self-described "information interpretation specialist," Westwood has been in the library game for the past two decades. She's the new cluster manager of the , and libraries of the King County Library System.

As a cluster manager, Westwood oversees the operations and management of each library under her supervision, including balancing budget needs between the Bellevue, Lake Hills and Crossroads libraries.

At times, Westwood admits, it can be tough.

"I was last manager of the Redmond-Kirkland cluster. Here, I've got 50 percent more staff, resources and space. It's certainly a workload, but I have the best job in the world. What's not to love?" she said.

Westwood, who last was the cluster manager of the Redmond, Kirkland and Kingsgate libraries, now works out of the Bellevue downtown branch of the King County Library system.

Westwood said the Bellevue downtown branch is one of the best facilities in the region, including other library systems such as the Seattle Public Library.

"I'd consider this facility to be the flagship of the Seattle library systems. It certainly offers services here than the others simply don't have," she said.

The Bellevue branch is the only library of all 46 facilities to still house a question and answer service, she said.

While some may think that having a live person looking up and answering questions is outdated when anyone can search on Google and Bing at home, a personal question-and-answer service is one way that libraries stay relevant to people, according to Westwood.

A Bellevue native, Westwood had aspirations of being a ballerina or a veterinarian as a young girl. She earned her undergraduate degree in English from the University of Washington, working as a sign language interpreter before getting her first library-related position at the Seattle public library, almost 10 years after her UW graduation.

"I saw an ad in a newspaper calling for 'young, dedicated people with a passion for information.' It's as if it was fate, that job falling into my lap," Westwood said. "I was lucky to study my craft in a community with an excellent library system."

Westwood elected to earn her Master's degree in library science from UW graduate school, working in ten different facilities from then to now.

One of her first major changes as Bellevue-Lake Hills-Crossroads cluster manager will be to oversee will be the addition of a sizeable parking garage at the Bellevue Downtown Branch in order to support the growing community around the library.

Westwood anticipates that the garage will be completed by September 2012, though in the meantime the Bellevue library will have significant traffic issues to face.

"People will have a hard time parking her while [the new garage] is being constructed. We're now strategizing to see if we can move some services off-site and lessen the physical demand over the next year, temporarily," Westwood said.

She also said that she envisions the Bellevue branch becoming a "destination library," a community attraction that will draw all sorts of reinvigorated attention to the area.

Westwood said that being a modern librarian can be a difficult profession when people assume libraries can't provide information that isn't already on the Web.

"People think everything is on the Internet. Unfortunately, 'everything' is not on the Internet," Westwood said. "Professional librarians stand for the information contained in books, not for the book itself."