by Kathy Roegge, MLS

Pierre Gregoire started as Director of the Frankfort Public Library http://www.frankfortlibrary.org/ on September 20, 2008 with a wealth of experience.  His past work experience includes 10 years with IBM, where he gained excellent training in customer service and organization. Prior to his job at IBM he worked for the Kroch's and Brentano's bookstores.  Kroch’s, which used to be the largest bookstore in Chicago and the largest bookstore chain in the United States, closed its door in 1995 (see their entry in Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kroch%E2%80%99s_and_Brentano%E2%80%99s).

 After taking a buyout during a downsizing of the IBM workforce, Pierre decided to return to college.   His first start in libraries while attending Rosary College (now Dominican University http://www.dom.edu/) in River Forest, when he joined the Friends of the Library at Aurora Public Library http://www.youseemore.com/aurorapl/.   Pierre was then hired to work at the library.   After graduating from Rosary in 1996 he started full-time at Aurora as a reference librarian in their Eola Road Branch Library. 

A year later he was hired as Director of the Audio-Visual Institute of Dupage (AVID), a multimedia library available to all DuPage County school districts.  It is no longer in existence, but when he started, AVID delivered audio visual to all the DuPage schools.  One of his first decisions as director was to move away from 16 mm films to video then DVD’s.    Ultimately he made the move to streaming films online focusing video use more on the individually indexed content rather than on generic titles. 

After leaving AVID he briefly became a high school technology director.  Making the decision to leave the school environment, Pierre worked for a time with the Border’s bookstore chain.  He also was working part-time as a reference librarian in Batavia Public Library http://www.batavia.lib.il.us/, and then started at the Plainfield Public Library http://www.plainfield.lib.il.us/ where one of his duties was teaching computer classes.  Pierre was assistant director of the Shorewood-Troy Public Library http://www.shorewood.lib.il.us/ until he applied for and was hired as the Director of the Frankfort Public Library.  

Pierre has enjoyed being a Director; his biggest challenge is being innovative in the library while still being part of a consortium.  “You are tied together by necessity and tradition, but things are starting to loosen up. “  He especially enjoys getting up in front of a group and teaching.   As director, Pierre would like the Frankfort Public Library to be seen as an educational institute for preschool age through adults and a necessary benefit to the community. 

Pierre is married and his wife, Christine, is a school librarian for Downers Grove School District.  His oldest daughter lives nearby with her husband and their soon to be 4 year old granddaughter. Pierre’s middle son works at the Aurora Public Library while attending Northern Illinois University.  The youngest son is a mechanical engineer in St. Charles for a firm that makes springs for Honda and Toyota. 

You may contact Pierre at pgregoire@frankfortlibrary.org.

Published September 23, 2009 in vol. 3, iss. 18 [View]