Meet the Team

Staff

  • Emily Chameides

    LIBRARY DIRECTOR

    Emily Chameides is the Library Director at the Hudson Area Library. Emily grew up taking excursions to cemeteries on vacations with her father who was an avid genealogist and who researched and wrote The Loop Family in America; Emily's great-great-grandmother was a Loop and several Loops lived in Columbia County, dating back as far as the 1740s (including some who were buried in the Hudson City Cemetery).

  • Gary Sheffer

    BOARD TRUSTEE & HISTORY ROOM CHAIR

    Gary Sheffer is a library trustee and chairman of its History Room Committee. He has worked in journalism and communications for more than 40 years and is a professor of public relations at Boston University. Gary grew up in Hudson and now lives in Livingston with his wife, Barbara.

  • Brenda Shufelt

    HISTORY ROOM COORDINATOR

    Brenda Shufelt is the History Room Coordinator. After a career as a teacher, librarian, and grant writer in a public school in Harlem, Brenda began at the Hudson Area Library as Program Director when the library moved into its armory space. She is from Columbia County and now lives in Claverack with her wife Lynda. Brenda believes Hudson history in many ways is a microcosm of the history of our country and it is full of interesting people, events, and lots of twists and turns.

    PHOTO CREDIT: by David McIntyre

  • Paul Costa

    REFERENCE LIBRARIAN

    Paul Costa is the Reference And Technology Services Librarian at the Hudson Area Library and is a member of the History Room Committee. He believes modern technology has a massive role to play in making the past more accessible.

Volunteer Researchers

  • John Craig

    John Craig, our senior History Room volunteer, is a Hudson fixture and according to the Gossips of Rivertown: “a tenacious researcher”. He is also a historian of all things baseball and the long-time publisher of Rundy’s Journal. He leads our annual fundraiser, the Hudson History Bus Tour.

  • Jim Hoon

    Jim Hoon is a retired information professional who formerly worked in corporate business and medical libraries. He was raised in the midwest, but spent his professional career in NYC. In retirement, his time is mostly spent in working with charities including the Ignatian Volunteer Corps, Hudson Area Library, Greene County Historical Society Vedder Library and Friends of the Public Square, in Hudson.

    Image Credit: Hudson, No. 13 of the Hudson River Portfolio by John Hill (View of Hudson from Athens after 1807)

History Room Committee Members

  • Kelley Drahushuk

    Kelley Drahushuk is a long-time resident of Hudson, NY with family history in the city dating back to the 1800s. She, along with her husband Alan, own The Spotty Dog Books and Ale, now in its 15th year of operation on Hudson’s Warren Street in the former CH Evans Hook & Ladder building. She has also served on the board of the Hudson Area Library. She leads our very popular Tales from Hudson's Crypts cemetery tour each October.

  • David Murphy

    David served as the President of the Board of Trustees of the Hudson Area Library and is a longtime supporter of both the Library and the Library’s History Room.

  • Jeff Rigby

    Jeff Rigby is retired after a career as a library and archives conservator. A 35 year resident of Stockport, he enjoys golfing, motorcycle riding, walking and reading. A former HAL board member, Jeff is now a happy member of the History Room Committee.

  • David William Voorhees

    David William Voorhees is Director of the Jacob Leisler Institute for the Study of Early New York History and Managing Editor of de Halve Maen, published by The Holland Society of New York. Formerly the Managing Reference History Editor at Charles Scribner’s Sons and a Co-Editor of The Papers of William Livingston, he received a Ph.D. in history from New York University in 1988. He has written books and articles on American history, particularly on the Dutch and English colonial periods in America. He has consulted on historic exhibits at the Museum of the City of New York and the Bard Graduate Center in Manhattan among others. HRH Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands made him a knight in the Order of Orange-Nassau. Dr. Voorhees is a member of the library’s History Room Committee.