After 41 years as a librarian at the Shorewood Public Library, Heide Piehler retired on October 12, 2023.
Piehler began her career with the Shorewood Public Library while studying English at UW-Milwaukee. She did not know that she wanted to be a librarian until college, but it was a job that aligned perfectly with her interests.
“I loved reading and I loved working with children, but I didn’t think I wanted to be a classroom teacher,” Piehler said. “When I was in college, I was taking some children’s lit classes, and the professors really encouraged me to find a profession where I would be working with kids and literature.”
Piehler enjoyed working with the Shorewood community. She has become a familiar face for children, parents, teachers, and community members alike.
“[The community is] so diverse and friendly, and I really enjoy the relationships I made while I was at the library,” Piehler said. “And the diversity of people…[being] able to work with all ages, people from all over the world, all with different thought processes and grief points.”
Although work as a librarian could be stressful, it was fulfilling for Piehler.
“There were times I felt overwhelmed by it because there were so many things to do and that I wanted to do, but there just wasn’t enough time,” Piehler said. “But I’ve always told people that even on the days I hated my job, I’ve always loved my work.”
Seniors who attended Lake Bluff in 6th grade will remember creating booklets about monarch butterflies and presenting their work at the Shorewood Village Hall below the library. The school coordinated with the public library to set up the unit after the library announced a Monarch Project initiative, headed by Piehler. The booklets are still in the children’s section of the public library.
“I love the Shorewood Monarch project and I worked for a long time to get the early literacy center set up,” Piehler said.
One of Piehler’s passions is the importance of early literacy skills to healthy development. Piehler believes that communication and language skills are valuable not only academically, but socially.
“Learning to read actually does start in infancy…I think so many kids don’t get those [skills] so they’re bound to not do well in school,” Piehler said. “If kids can’t express themselves or understand what other kids are saying to them or interpret it, they’re bound to have behavior problems.”
Four decades in the community allowed Piehler to grow familiar with many of the library’s regular visitors.
“I’ve appreciated people in college who I’ve known since they were three or four, who came back to the library every summer to tell me how they were doing and what they were doing,” Piehler said. “I’ll really miss having those connections.”
Piehler fondly recalled making calls to construction companies and conducting days of research for a young boy who wanted to know how much a wrecking ball weighed.
“I’m looking through all these construction books, I’m looking through all this stuff, I couldn’t find anything that said how much a wrecking ball weighs,” Piehler said. “The next morning, I had the morning off, so I started going through the phone book, calling construction sites– and they were mostly laughing. One person thought it was a hoax phone call and hung up on me. But I finally found someone and he said: ‘Well, lady, it depends on what you’re wrecking.’And then he told me they could weigh anywhere from 10 pounds to 200 pounds, or even 2000 pounds depending on what you’re trying to wreck.”
She said that public libraries should assist children in both academic and individual pursuits.
“I asked that little boy, is this for a report?” Piehler said. “Do you have to know this? And he’s like, ‘no, I don’t gotta know, but I really, really wanna know.’ When I could give him his answer, I thought, that’s really what the public library is for. We’re here for your homework or when you’ve got to know, but we’re also here for when you just want to know.”
In the future, Piehler plans to continue to volunteer in the community, particularly with the Reach Out and Read program, the Children’s Hospital, and Milwaukee Public Schools.
“I’m going to keep doing what I always did, I just won’t get paid for [it] anymore,” Piehler said. “I am hoping to work with Reach Out and Read. I’ve done a few projects with Children’s Hospital that I hope to continue and I want to volunteer at an MPS school doing some one-on-one reading with kids.”