This month, the library will celebrate 30 years on Assembly Street in our state-of-the-art and reimagined Main location. A location that was built and recently enhanced thanks to the love and support of our community and the staff who worked and work here.
As we approach this pivotal milestone in the library’s history—which is celebrated during National Library Lovers Month—it seems only natural to honor the life’s work of former Richland Library Chief of Youth Services Virginia “Ginger” Shuler—a library lover through and through—who passed away in January.
Ginger had a long career as a renowned leader and librarian at the Richland Library (aka Richland County Public Library) in Columbia, SC. from 1975 until her retirement in 2010.
For most of those years she served on the library’s administrative team as the Chief of Youth Services, in charge of the children’s book collections and children’s programming at the library. Ginger trained the staff teaching them the philosophy she lived by: “Children deserve the best.” Her goal was to put books into the hands of children. She spent her career making sure that children in Richland County experienced the best books, and the best library service possible. She deeply respected children’s minds and hearts, and every decision she made in her work, and life, reflected that.
Ginger’s contributions to library service for everyone, and specifically for children and families, are vast. She dreamed big, and always asked, “Why not Columbia?” She loved her community, and wanted the people who live in it to have the same opportunities people had elsewhere. She brought the world to Columbia, and enriched everyone’s life. Below are only a few examples of the ways she made the Richland Library so very outstanding.
For many years, Ginger served on the Richland County First Steps Board of Directors, and started a special initiative called First Steps to the Library, which put books into the hands of hundreds of children in childcare centers in Richland County.
In 1986, in collaboration with USC’s College of Library and Information Science, she started the annual A(ugusta) Baker’s Dozen: A Celebration of Stories. The weekend includes storytelling for area students, and an evening lecture delivered by the most renowned authors, illustrators, and publishers in the world of children’s literature. Past guest lecturers include Anita Lobel, Christopher Paul Curtis, Kevin Henkes, Tom Feelings, Virginia Hamilton, and Maurice Sendak. The community engaged with these and other legendary figures in children’s literature.
When the new Main Library was built and opened in 1993, she helped design the new Children’s Room. She and then Richland County Public Library Director David Warren met in Houston with author/illustrator Maurice Sendak. Sendak was being asked to approve the drawings for the iconic Where the Wild Things Are mural and free-standing figures which have defined the Children’s Room at the Main Library ever since the building opened. David Warren recalls, “He (Sendak) looked at them and then said “This will be the only place my work will be used as public art.” To date, it is the only public art of its kind in the United States.
Ginger admired Maurice Sendak and his life’s work so much that she sought to cultivate a long-lasting friendship with him, and did. One story that illustrates this is her participation in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, which she always loved. When the Wild Things balloon debuted in the parade, she was there as one of the handlers. No small feat.
In 1995 Ginger invited the original Broadway cast to perform the musical Really Rosie twice at the Koger Center, once for area school children, and once for the public. This musical is based on the book The Sign on Rosie’s Door, by Maurice Sendak, with music by Carole King. Local school children dressed up in Rosie costumes to be festive ushers. Maurice Sendak attended these performances.
In 1998 and 2006, Ginger brought Where the Wild Things Are ballet to the Koger Center. The ballet was created by Sendak (props and costumes) and Septime Webre of the American Repertory Ballet. The Columbia City Ballet presented these performances for our community.
In 2007 Ginger brought astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson to the Koger Center, and arranged for 2,000 middle school students to hear him speak. That same year, 900 children had the good fortune to see the Rosenbach Museum and Library’s musical, The Wild Things Whirligig, directed by Karen Saillant of the International Opera Theater.
A great lover of quilts, Ginger traveled with library colleagues to Alabama in 2009 to meet with the internationally acclaimed Gee’s Bend Quilters, whom she greatly admired. She wished to bring these amazing women artists to Columbia, so her community could know them and learn about their history and stories. In October, 2010, the library presented Gee’s Bend Quilters: The Story Behind the Art at the Koger Center. More than 20 original Gee's Bend quilts were exhibited at the Main Library, and the library offered 10 related programs for children and adults. We thank you, Ginger.
“The reason this library is so successful is because of the staff, and I want to give them opportunities they otherwise might not have.”
In 2010, Ginger was awarded the Literacy Leaders Award presented by the University of South Carolina for her long-lasting contribution to the field.
Upon her retirement in 2010, the library created a staff learning opportunity to honor her service, called the Outside Over There learning grant, named for the Maurice Sendak picture book. It is awarded annually at Staff Engagement Day. Ginger said “The reason this library is so successful is because of the staff, and I want to give them opportunities they otherwise might not have.”
In 2015, award-winning children’s book author and illustrator Anita Lobel (center) donated her archives to the USC Hollings Library. This gift, which includes much of her original art, was donated in Ginger’s name in recognition of their close friendship over the years, and Ginger’s admiration for Ms. Lobel’s many books for children.
During her 35-year career at Richland Library, Ginger mentored hundreds of staff. She taught them how to work and follow through with detailed attention. She taught them how to greet children, how to pick out good books for them, how to read aloud well, and how to encourage parents to share the beauty of high quality picture books, novels, and non-fiction with their children. She knew the impact books could make on the life of a child.
When leaving a note on a colleague’s desk, she often signed her name ginger, with a lower-case g. This irony does not go unnoticed. Her petite and impeccably dressed frame may have appeared delicate, but nothing about her passion, work, or dreams was small.
Her outstanding and long-lasting accomplishments, her contributions to the library, the fierceness with which she loved, taught, and cared for those around her, will forever be felt.
For all this and more, we thank you, Ginger.
Virginia “Ginger” Shuler died on Friday, January 27, 2023. If you’d like to honor her legacy with a memorial gift to the Richland Library Friends and Foundation, click here.