On my way to a meeting this evening with the Eaton Public Library (which is doing a building expansion with architect Roger Thorp) I stopped by the library I used to head. Back then (1987-1990) it was the Greeley Public Library. Now it's the Lincoln Park Branch of the High Plains Library District.
And my, it is beautiful. My warm congratulations to the staff and leadership who stepped in after I left, and have made of the branch a bright, inviting, bustling, and modern library. I like to think that I got it started on that path.
But I would also like to thank MY predecessor, Miss Esther Fromm, who served (if memory can be relied upon, which of course it can't) some 40 years as library administrator. She was so gracious to me. I radically departed from so many of her priorities and directions. But she was unfailingly kind to me, complimentary and courteous. This, I remember thinking, is how one should transition from being director: proud of one's legacy, but accepting that institutions change and adapt. They don't belong to directors; they belong to communities, and to leaders yet to come.
At any rate, I keenly enjoyed poking my head into the site of my first directorship.
Comments