Building Trust, One Question at a Time

If you ask incoming Director of the Library Valeri Wallace why she became a librarian, she’ll take you back to age 3. “I learned to read very early,” she says. As a kindergartener, she remembers being taken down to the first- and second-grade classrooms. There, she’d perch on a stool, legs swinging, and read aloud to her older peers. “Let me tell you, that made me very popular on the playground,” she says, laughing. “I was just the quintessential library kid.”

Originally on an artistic path, she realized, while a student at Parsons School of Design, that she gravitated more toward the academics than the arts. Around the same time, she read a magazine article about a slowed librarian pipeline: more librarians were retiring, and fewer were coming through the ranks. “It was at that moment I was like, ‘Of course,’” she says. “That’s what I’m meant to do.”

Prior to St. Andrew’s, Wallace held various library positions in boarding and day schools and colleges. She served as the librarian at Colby-Sawyer College in New Hampshire; before that, she was Director of Library Services at Wilbraham & Monson Academy, a boarding school in Massachusetts, where she supported the school’s AP Research course. Getting back into a classroom, and reconnecting with dorm duty, are two things she’s excited to do at St. Andrew’s.

“I really enjoy dorm duty,” she says. “It’s such a different way to get to know the students. But I really can’t wait to work with research seminar ... getting back into the classroom on a fairly regular basis is really exciting.”

Particularly exciting when she gets to do it with St. Andrew’s students. On her visit, she was struck by how engaging they were. “My tour guides should be a comedy duo,” she says of student ambassadors Lulu Wilson ’27 and Phoebe Fairbanks ’27. “They were such a hoot, and so smart.”

And later, in the Dining Hall over a shared meal, what began as a timed interview with students turned into a long, wide-ranging conversation. “I can’t think of a topic we didn’t touch on,” she says. “They asked good questions, had good answers, and our conversation turned into something much more. They were smart, curious, but not in an invasive way. I’ve worked with students before who’ve done the bulk of their interaction through a screen—one of the things I really enjoyed about St. Andrew's students is how comfortable and confident they are with direct interaction.”

It wasn’t just the students that left an impression. “The library … it just blows you away when you walk in,” she says. “The multiple stories, the atrium, the mullioned windows, the view of the water. It has such a classic academia feel.” (She also delighted at the sight of the vintage card catalog St. Andrew’s still keeps in the library.)

Wallace’s early priorities go beyond the shelves themselves. One of her first projects will be a full assessment of the library’s collections—not just restocking and reorganizing, but examining where the collection needs to be filled in or rebalanced. “Not just diversity of race or gender,” she says, “but also of thought.”

Her early measures of success will not be perfectly curated collections, restocked shelves, or tracking down all those overdue books (what can we say—we love to read around here). Those things are important, but paramount to her is the earned trust of students.

“When students feel comfortable coming to me with their questions, that’s a win,” she says. “Sometimes helping them find what they’re looking for gives you an insight into their process of growing up. I’ve come to appreciate supporting this age group as they go through that process. My success will be connection—with students, and with faculty and staff.”

What kind of reader was Wallace in high school? One who gravitated toward science fiction, dystopia, and art.

Favorite titles included Walter M. Miller Jr.’s A Canticle for Leibowitz, Stephen King’s The Stand, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, and Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose—a title she was delighted to see on the St. Andrew’s community reading list.

A more recent favorite is The Vegetarian by Han Kang, whose 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature Wallace was quick to point out. “It’s so lush and beautiful,” she says. “The translator is an absolute genius—it just pulls you in with this beautiful language.”

When she arrives at St. Andrew’s this August, she’ll do so with her daughter, Sally, who will hang out on campus until she returns to college for her junior year, and her cat, Frankie. Wallace is already looking forward to having company. “I need to find all the students who knit and crochet,” she says. “I’d love to have them over to my new home for cookies and knitting.”

Home, before she’s even arrived. “After my first visit, it was pretty clear,” she says. “I could really see myself here.”