You are as likely to find the library’s director out in the stacks as in his office.
Dustin Goforth, director of the Blount County Public Library, sees his role as a coach, a navigator and a collaborator.
“I hate to be that ‘eagle’s nest’ mentality type of leader,” Goforth said in an exclusive interview. “I don’t want to lead from behind a desk, you know, so you’ll see me picking up trash here and there. You’ll see me helping out with random tasks here and there.”
At first, this approach surprised some staff members, he said. “They saw me with my sleeves up and an apron on, serving coffee.” But they like that he pitches in, and pitching in is key to his management philosophy. “How can I be the one to tell them how to better things, if I don’t know what to do in the first place?”
Staff buy-in was a key for Goforth right from the beginning. He had been Assistant Director at the John P. Holt Brentwood Library, south of Nashville. He was interested in moving into a director’s role, and he’d considered moving out of state.
Then the Blount County opportunity opened up. “What really stuck out to me with this job was, honestly, the people, the environment—and the way they conducted the interview.”
His interview was open to the public, and while he said some candidates would have considered that kind of pressure “a deal breaker,” he “loved the transparency.”
Then, when the applicants were whittled down to two, the Board of Directors closed the library for a day so that the staff could interview them, along with other stakeholders, such as local elected officials. That process impressed Goforth. “That said that they were all about wanting to get people involved,” he recalled. “They really wanted to hear what the staff had to say. And to me, that spoke leaps and bounds about the county and the cities.”
He smiled, adding, “I wanted to work with a group that was willing to put the staff first.”
That early energy has continued through his first three months on the job. The staff, he said, “are very collaborative, and everybody that I’ve spoken to likens some of the staff departments as family, and that’s just something that you don’t see everywhere. And that’s such a joy to be around.”
Now, his office displays a big easel with a notepad tracking staff ideas. The energy, he said, is palpable. “Whenever I bring up ideas, [the staff] are excited.” With a rueful laugh, he added that he’s “actually had to pump the brakes on some of my ideas,” lest the enthusiastic staff get burned out.
Joining the library team in late May meant that Goforth jumped on board at the beginning of their busiest time: the Summer Reading Program.
“I found that in this job, especially at this library, you can describe summer in two words: Busy and excited.” He loved the energy, and it’s clear that his enthusiasm for the job and the library hasn’t waned over the summer.
One of Goforth’s challenges relates to that energy, and the busy activities. “I think that the hardest part of being a library advocate is that people think that a library, depending on who you ask, is a warehouse of books.”
That description of libraries stopped being accurate in the 1990s, he added. “You suddenly no longer had a need to go to the library to look up the height of Mount Rainier. You know, you can just pull out your phone.”
Libraries, like other industries, have adapted to this change in the information landscape. “For me,” Goforth said, “the strongest pull is the advocacy, because we’re now a culture location. We’re a gathering of information as opposed to a repository of information.”
Part of being a gathering of information, he added, “is inviting information in.” He has been working hard to build partnerships across the community, whether that involves local businesses and governments, or local artists and musicians. He’s excited about conversations with the cities of Maryville and Alcoa, and delighted that library staff travel to Townsend to lead story times. Goforth also looks forward to the new arboretum in progress on the Maryville-Alcoa Greenway, already thinking of ways the library can connect with the nearby project.
“Excited” and “enthusiastic” are words that come up a lot in a conversation with Goforth.
He has taken to his new community, loving the small-town vibe that persists, despite Blount County’s suburban growth. He grew up in a very small town in rural southern Illinois. After living in Colorado and the Nashville area, he finds that he much prefers the local vibe here.
He and his wife, Deandra, are newlyweds; their first wedding anniversary is on the horizon. She likes the new community, too, especially since her work commute is much easier here than it was to Nashville.
“We were two days in,” Goforth said, “and she looked at me and said, ‘I’m so glad we moved.’”
The beautiful scenery is a big part of why they love it here. “The mountains,” he said, when asked what he loves about Blount County. “It’s the mountains, and the trees, and the atmosphere. We love it here.”
The Blount County Public Library is located at 508 N. Cusick St., Maryville. It’s open Monday-Thursday 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Friday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturday 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; and Sunday 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Library cards are free to Blount County residents, and most library events and activities are free to the public. In addition to books, the library checks out movies, seeds (in season), and cake pans. Services include computers with printers and internet access, photocopying, children’s activities and educational programs. (There is a modest fee for printing and photocopying to defray the cost of materials.)
The programs and facilities are supported by the Blount County Friends of the Library and the Blount County Public Library Foundation.
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