Garrett Neese/Daily Mining Gazette Dillon Geshel, director of the Portage Lake District library, stands in the Michigan Room.

HOUGHTON — Portage Lake District Library Director Dillon Geshel was part of the search team to find a new director for the Superiorland Library Collective in Marquette. The search landed on a candidate Geshel hadn’t predicted or sought: himself.

Geshel will leave his job of six years next month to become director of the Superiorland Library Collective in Marquette. The group provides technology support, advocacy and resource sharing and more to 35 member libraries across the Upper Peninsula.

Geshel was on the committee to find the next director, which had been looking since January. After being unable to find a good candidate, Superiorland reached out to a search consultant, who then talked to Geshel.

“I was not looking for other work,” Geshel said. “But talking to the search consultant, and the committee that interviewed me to find out if I was a good fit, sort of convinced me it was time to try something new that was still library-related.”

As director of the Superiorland Library Collective, Geshel will oversee the schedule of service that it maintains for its 35 member libraries, including PLDL. That includes helping them manage technology, providing consulting, and finding discounts on shared digital services.

“We have a lot of small libraries in the U.P. that have one or two people on staff, and they are the HR department on their own, they’re kind of everything,” he said.

Geshel started at the library in 2010, when he started working as a page while an undergrad at Michigan Technological University. Aside from one year at Northern Michigan University’s library, he’s been with PLDL since, becoming director in 2015.

In that time, Geshel said, PLDL has pushed the boundaries of what a library can do for the community. What he’ll miss most is the way the library collaborates with other partner organizations to bring programs and resources to the community.

“We have an excellent staff here that’s worked hard to make a library more than what it was for people when they were kids,” he said.

Geshel will also be finishing a newly introduced program, Rad Academy, which combines skateboarding instruction with lessons in STEM. It runs Thursdays and Saturdays at the Houghton skatepark through Sept. 11.

The library board was set to start the discussion of finding a new director at its meeting Wednesday night. That process will include reviewing the job description for the director and deciding whether to bring on a search firm, Geshel said.

Geshel thanked the community for placing their trust in him as director for the past six years.

“Every day I’ve loved it,” he said. “Working here helped me find my passion for library work. I didn’t know what I was going to do when I graduated college before I got a job here.”

When he started working at the library, Geshel was focused on finding other people who shared his love of reading and writing. More than 10 years later, what draws him to libraries now is the community aspect.

“Public libraries, if they’re flexible, they can rise at almost any occasion to support or provide services to the community,” he said. “We’re just so adaptable with how we can use the funding that’s made available to us through our residents … everyone seems eager to rise to any occasion to meet a need for the community.”

The library will host a farewell party for Geshel from 1 to 3 p.m. Sept. 2.