Kitsap Regional Library has selected Zak Sherman as the new manager of the library in Silverdale when Melody Sky Eisler leaves in January to become the director of the Port Townsend City Library.
Sherman, 38, has been branch manager at Manchester since 2012. Prior to joining Kitsap Regional Library, Sherman was the branch supervisor for two libraries in the Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library system in Florida for four years.
Eisler, 34, was selected earlier this month to become the director of the Port Townsend Library. She has served as the branch manager at the library in Silverdale for three years, coming to Kitsap after her work at the city library system in Boise, Idaho.
Kitsap Regional Library Director Jill Jean expressed “a mixture of pride and sadness” in sharing the news of Eisler’s departure with staff.
“I know Melody will be a wonderful addition to the Port Townsend community,” said Jean. Jean said Eisler has built an “amazing team at Silverdale that focuses on great customer service. We will miss her.”
In taking the Silverdale manager’s position, Sherman moves from one of the KRL’s smaller locations to one of its busiest, and into a key position at a time when Kitsap Regional Library is gearing up for a capital campaign to raise the funds needed to build a new library in Silverdale.
“We all want something to be proud of, something that symbolizes all we believe in as a community and worth defending with all urgency and sacrifice should anything threaten it,” Sherman said. “For me, that something is the library.”
Jean said the library system will begin recruiting for a new branch manager for Manchester as quickly as possible.
Sherman, received a bachelor’s degree in religious studies from Canisius College in Buffalo, and a master’s degree in library science from the State University of New York at Buffalo. He is certified as a librarian in the states of New York and Washington.
A “Hello/Goodbye” party for staff, Friends of Silverdale Library and the public to thank Eisler and welcome Sherman will be from noon to 2 p.m. Jan. 16 at the Silverdale Library.
