Longtime Waukesha library director to retire

Dec. 15, 2011

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By Laurel Walker of the Journal Sentinel

Dec. 15, 2011 0

Waukesha - Waukesha Public Library Director Jane Ameel, who's held the post for the past 27 years, has announced she'll retire effective May 1.

Her library career spans 38 years.

During her tenure in Waukesha, she has overseen three expansion and renovation projects, the formation of the CAFÉ - or Catalog Access for Everyone - consortium of local libraries, development of the library's public art program and introduction of the Waukesha Reads program, where the community focuses on a single book through a month's worth of book-related activities.

This year, the Wisconsin Library Association recognized Waukesha's library as the 2011 Wisconsin Library of the Year.

About Laurel Walker

Laurel Walker covered local, school and county government for 20 years -- the last half of that at the Milwaukee Journal and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel -- before she was named Waukesha County columnist in 1997. Today she writes about the people, places and events around metropolitan Milwaukee with a broad suburban focus. She was the youngest of nine children raised on a central Wisconsin farm before leaving the nest for journalism studies at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and a masters degree at the University of Oregon. She has spent the last half of her life in Waukesha County, where she and her husband raised two sons. Though she has a fondness for life in Waukesha, she eagerly partakes in the culture of the big city to the east and the recreation of the forests to the west. With sons in the arts, she has a special fondness for symphonic music concerts and art museums. She finds peace in a good book at a Northwoods getaway weekend, adventure in family visits to the east and west coasts, and satisfaction in a column well-written that reaches readers.