The year was 1973 and Nancy Curtin wasn’t sure what she was going to do. The Massapequa-raised college student knew she wanted to work with children, but the job market for teachers was oversaturated.
“I heard about an opening at the Port Washington library for a children’s librarian,” she said. “I always knew that I wanted to work with children but I hadn’t thought of doing that through the library.”
Curtin became a full-time employee two years later and then worked up the ranks to assistant library director in the late 1980s. In 1994, she was named library director, a position she has held ever since but will leave at the end of the month.
The library will celebrate Curtin’s tenure with an informal reception on June 19 from 4 to 6 p.m. in the Karen and Ed Adler Art Gallery on the lower level of the building. The event will give Port residents a chance to speak with Curtin, who will also be interviewed as part of a formal program. A “Goodbye Nancy” guestbook will also be available to sign during the party and in the library lobby from June 12 through 19.
“That’s a hard question to answer,” Curtin replied when asked what she would miss most about the job. “I love the job and how every day is different, I love working with ideas and helping people solve problems or helping them reach their goals. I feel like it’s a job that makes a difference.”
During her time as director, the library underwent two “much needed” renovations. But she said that her proudest accomplishment was making the library a place for everyone.
“We have a job search boot camp … and we have a very large English as a second language program, which has 250 adult learners and 35 languages represented,” she said. “This is a place where everyone is included and everyone can gain something.”
Curtin spent 24 years as director, but that is actually the shortest tenure of any director in the library’s history. Wilhemina Mitchell, the library’s first director, held that position for 34 years (1892-1926). She was followed by Helen B. Curtice, who served for 32 years (1926-1958); Edward de Sciora, who served for 36 years (1958-1994); and then Curtin.
Her successor, former Assistant Director Keith Klang, will be only the fifth director in the library’s 126-year history.
Her advice for Klang?
“Realize that change will be constant,” she said. “That’s in most industries, but clearly in any information-related industry. You also need to be willing to listen to the community.”
Great change is something that Curtin experienced during her tenure. When she became director in 1994, there were only 10,000 websites and the internet was mostly used by scientists and academics.
“[Before the internet,] the library was truly the only public source of information,” Curtin said. “[We] had to completely reinvent [ourselves] because [we were] no longer the sole source of information.”
She thinks that libraries will continue to survive because they provide a way for communities to connect.
“People value learning together, having that human connection, and libraries are a center for that,” she said.
The Port Washington community in particular, she said, is what made her time with the library so special. She thanked the library board for its support and said that there was always someone willing to lend a hand to make the library a better place for everyone.
“People would ask me, ‘How could you not move on?'” Curtin said. “I felt like I started at the top here in Port Washington. There is no other library that would’ve been of interest.”
