Librarian modest about accomplishments
Matte’s many efforts bring world of reading to Rome teenagers

By R. PATRICK CORBETT
Observer-Dispatch

ROME — Young adult librarian isn’t just a job title for Lisa Matte.

“It’s something I believe passionately in,” the 2004 Accent on Excellence award winner said from a library cubicle decorated mostly with organized piles of reference materials and to-do lists.

Jervis Public Library created the position in 1997 with Matte’s background in mind. The position was created to involve teens in the library, and since then Matte has reached out in many directions to Rome’s teens.

“No one was responsible for working with teens (in the library in 1997),” she recalled. “It was a chance for me to build a teen services program from the ground up.” The library board, she said, “has just given me the reins.”

Today “Miss Lisa’s” growing entourage of teens read to young children across the cityscape, raise money for library youth programs and collaborate with the library board to choose the books and other materials they want on the shelves.

Former library trustee Roberta Cavano nominated Matte for the honor because of Matte’s devotion to the library’s — and the community’s — next generation.

“She serves as an extraordinarily reliable link between teens and the community at large, and communicates the utmost respect for teens and their capacity to accomplish great things,” Cavano said. “She is cultivating responsible, involved, creative, energetic citizens, and for that we owe her a debt of gratitude.”

Most recently, Matte convinced the library’s Youth Advisory Group to take on the daunting task of posting the online Teen Calendar sponsored by Rome Up & Running and the Sears Family Foundation. The group also sponsors the Teen Summer Reading Club, book fairs, “murder mystery nights,” comedy “improv” nights and ghost hunting and builds the library’s Honor America Days float.

Matte chairs the Oneida County Youth Bureau Youth Advisory Board, presents workshops on “Encouraging Teens to Read” for Mid-York Library System members and coordinates visits by authors to Rome and Camden schools.

She accepted the Accent on Excellence award modestly and quietly. “I’m not usually at a loss for words, but ...,” she said, her words trailing off thoughtfully.

Matte is delighted with the response of Youth Advisory Group members.

Even those who tell her they don’t like to read come to meetings because they “like to come in six hours a week to help out” with the group.

“I’ve become almost a training ground,” she added. “One teen moved to Canada and I told her, ‘Your job is to start a program like this in Canada.’ She said she will, and I believe her.”

Cavano said Matte has won a number of grants for equipment and books and youth workshops on topics such as photography, poetry and illustration, and this summer she arranged with McDonald’s to distribute 100,000 Summer Reading Club fliers in Happy Meals.

Matte said she also manages to block out quality time for her 4-year-old daughter, Rebecca, and husband, Bill, at their Martin Drive home.

So how does she find time for all the youth-related causes? “The projects you want to work on, you have to make a priority,” she said.

Then she added with a laugh, “The (dirty) dishes will be there tomorrow.”