Laura Koenig, a librarian with many years of experience at the Boston Public Library, has been hired as the new director of the Belfast Free Library.
The city received 28 applications for the position from Maine to Alaska, according to City Manager Erin Herbig.
After two rounds of interviews, the hiring committee unanimously selected Koenig.
City Councilor Neal Harkness, a hiring committee member, said the goal was to find a person with “the kind of experience, personality, creativity and imagination that Belfast uniquely requires.”
“You want a librarian with a love of life and a love of books, and that’s exactly what she projected,” Harkness said, speaking at Tuesday’s council meeting before the council unanimously voted to appoint Koenig.
Koenig told the council she was excited to get started and to support the work the Belfast Free Library is already doing.
“To me, libraries are places not just of knowledge and information and stories, but places for access and places for community building,” she said.
Koenig most recently served as the head of children’s services at the Boston Public Library’s Central Library in Copley Square. She also oversaw a $78 million renovation of the library’s historic Boylston Building, and led a team of seven full-time staff in a space that welcomed nearly a quarter of a million visitors annually.
In 2007, Koenig received her master’s degree in library and information science from Simmons University in Boston, according to her resume.
Steve Norman directed Belfast’s library for more than 30 years, and retired at the end of 2025.
