CURRENT POSITION Youth Services Coordinator, Maryland State Library Agency DEGREE MLS, Indiana University School of Library and Information Science, 1985 FAST FACT Sanders’s hometown, Columbus, IN, is famous for its architecture and is nicknamed “Athens of the Prairie.” FOLLOW facebook.com/mdstatelibrary; x.com/MDStateLibrary; linkedin.com/in/carrie-sanders-35488632 Photo by Brooke Higdon

Cradle to High School

Carrie Sanders, youth services coordinator at Maryland State Library Agency (MSLA), works with the state’s youth librarians on “everything from early literacy to school age programming and teen services.” Maintaining trauma-informed care has been a hallmark of her work. 

In 2023, she coordinated the Teen SOS series, trainings evolving from challenges the pandemic caused teens. Experts offered tips for working with teens in public and school libraries. “I always invite school librarians,” says Sanders, “even though I’m really supposed to work with public libraries. They are all our kids—we just see them at different times of the day.” 

Sanders’s office works closely with the Maryland Department of Veteran and Military Families. In 2024, MSLA ordered the picture book Unstoppable Me, by Dr. Wayne Dyer, for six public library systems, which offered programs using the book to help military families connect with one another. 

For underserved expectant families, Sanders’s department has created Hatchlings, a program designed to connect families with their libraries for critical early literacy work. “We teach them what’s happening now, in utero, and we lay the foundation of sitting and reading,” says Sanders. Later, those children and others will benefit from her work on the science of reading. But “before you can have that joy,” she explains, “you need to master the art of reading.” She adds, “My mom is 85, and she’s still teaching. I’ve grown up with teaching in my blood and my bones.”