When Karen Yother says she loves libraries, you know she means it.

Yother, a 17-year librarian who just received the Librarian of the Year Award from the Idaho Library Association, is the Youth Services Coordinator for the Community Library Network.

In her office, near the childrens book section at the Hayden library, Yother's joy about her work is palpable. It can be felt in the light reflected off the office walls, painted orange at Yother's request.

"It's my favorite color. There's just something about it," she says with a grin, as she sits down at her desk.

The walls are covered with pictures, signs and other trinkets - all evidence of Yother's love of reading, learning and most importantly, her passion for sharing those experiences with others, especially children.

Behind her, a shelf filled with books, stuffed animals and a few toys, is draped with a long feather boa, the same color as the orange office walls.

One of several signs reads: "Don't be quiet."

"Summer reading might be my favorite program, but fall is my favorite season," she says, while talking about being a native of the Coeur d'Alene area.

Yother oversees youth library programs in Athol, Harrison, Hayden, Pinehurst, Post Falls, Rathdrum, Spirit Lake, and the Bookmobile.

With Yother leading the way, attendance in the library network's youth programs has grown 21 percent over the last three years.

Yother is currently the president of the Collaborative Summer Library Program, a national nonprofit composed of volunteers who create, produce and provide public libraries with high-quality summer reading materials for children, teens and adults across all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and four island territories. She just finished a term as president of the Idaho Library Association.

Her passion for reading goes beyond libraries and encompasses the Idaho Humanities Council as well. For the last 10 years Yother has coordinated the IHC Fall Lecture and Dinner; the most recent event featured local author Jess Walter. In 2012, North Idaho Business Journal selected her as one of the 'Top 30 Under 40' professionals, recognizing her commitment to the community.

When many of us think of librarians, there's a stereotypical image of serious ladies whose main purpose is to check out books, collect overdue fines, and say "shush." How have things changed?

When I first started this 17 years ago, the library was a very different place. It was that very quiet place. We had one Internet station off to the side. People could use it for 20 minutes a day.

Now, the library is no longer just a place to check out books and for kids to come for story time. It's a place where people can explore their interests. They can learn new skills. They can meet other people. We do a French story time so kids can learn a language. Parents even enjoy it.

We partner with local organizations like Gizmo-CdA. We have our 3D printers, and we do maker-type activities. So it's really beyond just books and learning.

Someone just said to me the other day, 'Oh, you're a librarian. You must read all day.' I can't tell you the last time I read at work. That's not what we do. It's really about engaging with our community, doing programs out in the community, meeting with people to talk about what we do. We go to schools and day cares. One of my staff, Nick, he was just out for the last two days at schools working with them on cloud-based 3D printing. It's really helping these students get their hands on this next level of technology, which they might not have the opportunity to do.

For us it's very exciting to be libraries, because we have this opportunity to open minds in a very different way, for both children and adults.

Did you want to be a librarian when you grew up?

No, I wanted to be a teacher, which I did for two years until my dad got sick and I moved back to the area in 1997.

I started working at the library part-time. I thought, well this is just a temporary position, until I go back to teaching. I don't think I ever looked for a job in another field. I just feel like I found where I'm supposed to be.

I get to work with amazing people, and I get to work with the community. I'm inspired almost every day when I come to work for some new project or a new idea, even if it's just a display to encourage someone to read poetry books or a biography. It's just a great place to be.

What's your favorite thing about this job?

Being able to share with kids. Like when they do glow-in-the-dark slime. It's white glue and some liquid starch. They probably have that at home. They can make this themselves. It's all about science and math.

It's that experience, that you get to see that light in them. And it's so great to be able to follow that up and share a book with them, and you see that same light, when they find this great new mystery book, or adventure story, or animal story, or if they have a favorite athlete and we have a biography on that person, and they get so excited.

It's also about relationships. I was at a board meeting in Washington, D.C., a week ago and I had an opportunity to have a meeting at the Pentagon with the Department of Defense about library programs. One woman said 75 percent of military families no longer live on base and they're not self-identifying in their communities. She asked me, 'What would you do for those people?'

I said to her, 'If you came into my library, I would greet you just like every other patron.' As I started talking to her I started to cry, and I thought, 'Oh, this is not professional at all.' I apologized and I said, 'but this is our passion, building relationships with people.'

That leads us to all the other fun stuff we do. For us it is building relationships with the kids, the parents, the caregivers, the community. That would probably be my No. 1 favorite, most important thing we do. Then all of this other stuff is just sort of the icing on the cake.

What are some of the challenges in your work?

The challenges would be a lot of those misconceptions about libraries. People say, 'Oh, libraries are not going to exist in a few years.' But our attendance at programs and circulation, people are still coming in in droves. People are using libraries in different ways. Where it used to be just coming in and checking out a book, we now have e-resources. So if a child can't come to story time - they're sick or they don't have the car that day - they can access story time online. DaybyDayID.org - every day of the year has a different story time. It's through the Idaho Commission for Libraries, and it's got songs and rhymes. Tumblebooks reads a story to them. It has a STEM-based activity, a physical activity. So it's all of those story time components so they can still engage in the library from home. It's all about finding ways to meet the needs of our customers.

With technology everything changes. Now between the wireless and the tablets and all the devices, how do we meet those changing needs? Finding the resources and staffing to be able to do that is one of our challenges.

What would you like people to know about libraries?

When I think about libraries of the future - five years, 10 years down the road - libraries are really community centers. They're the place where people can go and attend a program on the Holocaust, or they can come and do a musical program, or learn about a printer. It doesn't matter what your education background is. It doesn't matter where you live. It's all about you wanting to come and learn about something more.

I'm one of those people, I love to hold books in my hand. When a new one comes out, we want to purchase it. But libraries are beyond books, and we want people to know that we are really about lifelong learning. We want people to come in, use our resources, talk with us and engage with us so that we can better meet the needs of our community, so our community is stronger as we move forward.

One more quick question - if you had the power to change the world, what would you do?

If I had that power, every child would have equal opportunities - and it would be continuous. The playing field would be leveled so all children could overcome hurdles so they could all have the same chance to learn how to succeed as adults.