Ventura Friends of the Library Annual Membership Meeting
TIME CHANGE; Saturday, October 3, 3:00 to 5:00 pm
Annual Membership Meeting 2026
3:00 to 4:00 pm Featured Speaker
4:00 to 5:00 pm Business Meeting
Our annual meetings are always open to guests who are interested in our organization or our guest speakers! Our speaker this year will be Ventura County Library Director, Nancy Schram, filling us in on library renovation projects and other Ventura library updates
Nancy Schram – Library Director, Ventura County Library Nancy Schram brings a passion for public service and lifelong learning to her position as Library Director for the Ventura County Library since December 2017, following her role as Deputy Library Director beginning in 2016. With over 30 years in public librarianship, Nancy has held leadership roles with the City of Thousand Oaks Library and the County of Los Angeles Public Library, where she led adult literacy initiatives and managed multiple branches. She holds a Master’s in Library and Information Science from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.
Nancy currently serves on the Boards of CENIC and Califa, and sits on the Administrative Council for the Southern California Library Cooperative. She is a past board member of the California Library Association and past President of the California County Librarians Association. She believes strongly in the power of libraries to transform communities and values collaborative leadership. Her dedication to equitable access and innovation continues to guide her work and service.
Her presentation will be followed by a business meeting for members to vote on the officers for 2027 and updates to our bylaws.
You can download a copy of the bylaws below with proposed additions in red and deletions marked by strikeout.
Slate of Officers for 2027
| President: Danny Carrillo |
| Vice-President: Mary Olson |
| Treasurer: Val Magro |
| Recording Secretary: Mary Braitman |
| Corresponding Secretary: Star Soto |
Past Annual Meetings
Save the Date for our Annual Meeting for 2025
Our guest speaker, Elisabeth Haggblade was born in 1942 in Munich, Germany. She immigrated to the U.S. in 1961 and became a naturalized citizen. Trauterose: Growing Up in Postwar Munich is a memoir of her childhood in Germany after World War II. Orphaned at birth during WWII, she was fostered by a former S.S. officer and his family. Negotiating daily life postwar was challenging living in a garden hut located several miles from school. After her foster mother passed, she was accepted into the Sisters of St. Ana Heim boarding school. This education led to her immigration to the U.S. and teaching.
She will have books for sale at the meeting (cash only) for $18 and she will sign them.
Our annual meetings are always open to guests who are interested in our organization or our guest speakers!
2024 Annual Meeting
Annual Meeting November 2023
E.P. Foster Library Topping Room, 651 E. Main St. Sunday November 5, 2:00 to 4:00 pm
Our annual meetings are always open to guests who are interested in our organization or our guest speakers!
As this year marks the 150th Anniversary of Ventura County, the guest speaker for our annual meeting was Deborah Holt Larkin, author of a memoir of Ventura County’s own trial of the century in the 1950’s — A Lovely Girl: The Tragedy of Olga Duncan and the Trial of One of California’s Most Notorious Killers.
Deborah Holt Larkin was ten years old when her father, the court reporter for the Ventura County Star-Free Press, was immersed in the trial of Olga Duncan’s killers taking place at the Ventura County Courthouse (now Ventura City Hall).
Larkin’s memoir tells the story of this stranger-than-fiction murder case, and the influence of her reporter father’s work in her early life.
Her talk for our meeting will concentrate on her father, Bob Holt. Some of our members will remember his deadline reporting and whimsical columns from his 34 year career with the Ventura Star-Free Press.
Larkin will also speak about the case at the Atrium of City Hall on November 4 at 10:00 am.
Books will be available for purchase and signing by the author.
A brief business meeting for Ventura Friends of the Library will follow to elect the Board of Directors for the coming year and to pass some bylaw changes in our continuing effort to bring our 54 year old bylaws into the 21st century. To see the proposed bylaw changes, see Ex Libris Fall 2023, page 3 .
This is event is part of the celebration of the
150th Anniversary of Ventura County!
