Heidi Schutt is shown surrounded by books. She begins work as the new library director on Tuesday, Sept. 6.

There is a new face at the Blue Earth Community Library and Fossil Discovery Center. But it is a very familiar face to many folks in the Blue Earth area.

Heidi Schutt is the new library director and begins her work at the Blue Earth Library starting on Tuesday, Sept. 6.

“I’m very excited about starting in this new position,” Schutt says. “I have loved libraries most of my life, and I have a fondness for Blue Earth and this particular library.”

Schutt was born and raised in Blue Earth and is a 2005 Blue Earth Area High School graduate.

After high school she attended college at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota. It was there that she really fell in love with libraries.

“I worked at the college library there,” she explains. “The librarians there were great mentors, they helped me find out what I wanted to do next.”

The librarians gave her all kinds of advice and had her do little projects all over the library, with the intent of guiding Schutt into learning all things librarians do.

“They were thrilled when I finally told them I wanted to become a librarian,” Schutt says. “They were so very happy for me.”

Schutt graduated from Concordia in 2009 and that fall she went to graduate school at the University of Washington in Seattle. She got her Masters degree in Library Science there.

“I enjoyed every minute of going to school and living in Seattle,” she says. “But I knew I really wanted to work at a small town, rural library.”

When she graduated in the spring of 2011, she learned that Judy Tupper, long-time librarian at the Muir Library in Winnebago, was retiring. Schutt applied and was hired, and moved back to Minnesota.

“It (the Muir Library) was a great place for a ‘baby’ librarian to start out,” Schutt says. “I could learn a lot on the job, learn from my mistakes, and help people I knew.”

She says it was those day-to-day moments she loved the most, working with, and helping people she knew.

“I enjoyed taking books to Parker Oaks, and of course, I am proud of helping start Blue Earth Area Reads,” Schutt says. “But it is the interactions with the people that gave me the most joy.”

Schutt was the library director in Winnebago for close to nine years. In that time she got married to her husband, Jeremiah, and had two babies, Gus, who is now 8, and Joshua, who is now 6.

At the end of February 2020 she decided to take a job as the reference and acquisitions librarian at the Martin County Library in Fairmont.

“Everybody knows what happened a month later,” Schutt says. “COVID hit, and the state was shut down, including the library. We were all told to go home. I was a little concerned about my job, since I was the low man on the roster, so to speak – the most recent to have been hired.”

But, by May of 2020, all of the staff at the Martin County Library were called back to work. And, in 2021, Schutt became the assistant library director there.

It was a very difficult decision to leave her job there, she says. But coming back to her hometown to work at the library she loves was something she could not pass up when she was offered the position.

The library board had seven applicants, with four of those having library education and/or experience. But the board unanimously selected Schutt as their choice to lead the library, citing her background, education, experience and enthusiasm.

“I’m really excited about three things,” Schutt says. “I am excited to collaborate with the other libraries in Faribault County, something that has already been done. I think it is important in small towns and rural communities for people to collaborate on things.”

She is also excited to help design programs at the library for kids, but also for their parents, their friends and all the other adults in the area, too.

“And I know there is a lot more to libraries than just a place for books,” she adds. “But I am very excited to be here because I love to talk about books, to everyone I see.”

So what does Schutt say she does for fun, when not at work?

“I love to read books, of course,” she says with a smile and a laugh. “But I also like to ride bike, which I learned from my dad, and I also love to garden.”

Of course, spending time with her family is also way up on the list of activities. She loves being a mom, she adds, and being with her family. With her new job in Blue Earth, her husband Jeremiah working at Meyer’s Plumbing, the two boys at school in Blue Earth Area, and having parents and grandparents right nearby, there is a lot of family time going on.

“I can hardly wait to get to work at the library,” Schutt says. “I am really excited to get going.”