One of the reasons that O’Shaughnessy is able to do such creative and involved programs is because she has adequate help at the RVC library. “Here I got very spoiled because I always have enough help,” O’Shaughnessy said. “In another place, it might be too involved and intricate to have one person with 15 kids.”

There are many middle and high schoolers that volunteer their time at the library. They aid O’Shaughnessy in the crafts: keeping kids in line, helping with the craft and cleaning up.

Also helping O’Shaughnessy is Heather Newman, one of the library’s Children’s Room Pages. Newman, 21, is a rising senior at Molloy College and a village resident.

Newman helps with a lot of the children’s programs the library runs, and has even run some of her own. A few weeks ago, she learned how to make a bracelet with ribbons and washers.

“As a page, I said, ‘I learned how to make this bracelet,’ and they said, ‘You should do it,’” said Newman. So she ran her own program.

“Heather is really good and really organized and very helpful,” said O’Shaughnessy. “She’s our go-to girl.”

Endless possibilities

O’Shaughnessy’s enthusiasm for the library and for running programs for kids is palpable. She had so many ideas for programs to run over the summer, she said, that she was told to ease up a little and save some of the ideas.

“Sometimes it’s hard to hold Lisa down and she’ll come up with a great idea,” Ain said, “and we’ll do one-off [programs] during the year.”

Some of the programs take on a life of their own. Craft Camp added a fourth week so O’Shaughnessy could do a craft with kids from the Hispanic Brotherhood. And she originally conceived Dinosaur Explore to be a one-time program, but it turned into a four-week adventure.

“It’s any job,” O’Shaughnessy said. “If you’re really into it and you want to put your time into it, you’re going to do that. Here though, they’re really fantastic about giving me off-the-desk time to work on these things and get them ready.”

Planning is one of the things that O’Shaughnessy does best — even very far in advance.

“Next year’s [summer reading] theme has to do with science,” she said. “And I’m already like, ‘Oh, I’ve always wanted to build a volcano!’”