LaFollette Library Director celebrates 35th anniversary

Nancy Green marks a milestone today

By Charlotte Underwood

LAFOLLETTE, TN (WLAF)- Nancy Green celebrates her 35^th anniversary as the LaFollette Library Director today, November 20^th!

Over the years, Green has seen many changes in her career as a librarian, but the one thing that has never changed is her “love of the people” in the community.

Green’s first job out of high school was through a title one program, as a teacher’s aide.

“I worked at Wynn-Habersham School under librarian Marjorie Johnson, and she gave me such good training,” Green said, adding that she learned about ISBN numbers, acquisition numbers and more.

“She taught me about being a librarian the old way; I learned a lot from her,” Green said.

After that, “life happened” and Green got married and had two children.

“Then, Miss Connie, who was at the library at the time, retired. I did not know she had retired, or I would have applied. As it turned out, the girl they did hire did not like the job, I can’t imagine that, but she didn’t, so she called me and asked me if I was willing to take a part-time job with her,” Green said, adding that she “jumped at the chance.”

Green had only been working at the library for about two weeks, when the librarian told her she could have the job, and that she was leaving.

“Of course, it wasn’t her place to give it to me, but I did appreciate it, so I continued to pretty much run the library until the library board posted the position. They interviewed a lot of people, but they hired me, for which I am ever grateful,” Green said. That hire date was November 20^th 1989.

“I was young and green, but I grew with the job, and I learned the job. At that time, there was card catalogs, every card had to be filed alphabetically, people had to sign the cards to get those books … it was a lot more work to do than now, with so much filing,” Green said.

Every book that came in had an author card, a title card, and it could have as many as 10 subject cards, everything that was mentioned in anyway had a subject card for that book and they all had to be filed.

Then “along came automation.” As the librarian, Green had to “pretty much single handedly” bar code and download mark records for every book in the library.

“That took a ton of time, but it had to be done, so I did a section at a time and as they were done you could finally, gradually get rid of those old cards in the back that had to be signed and then when everything was done … we could scan books to check them out,” Green said.

No matter the changes brought on by the digital age, her favorite part of her job has remained the same.

“The people are my favorite. I get to see my patrons on a day-to-day basis. I get to know them; they are like family,” Green said. She said she especially loved spending time with the children who come into the library.

Making sure the LaFollette Library maintains that “family atmosphere” is important to Green. She said she loves her job, and even after 35 years, she “still looks forward to working every single day.

She said some of her biggest highlights as the library director included LaFollette getting to move into the larger location.

“We moved into here on August 12^th 2012 from the old library located in the city hall building; even as small as it was, it was the largest library in the county at that time, but it was too small for what we needed,” Green said.

Johnny Byrge was the recreation director for LaFollette, and he suggested that the library move into the recreation center.

“We hired an architect and had several meetings with all of us and decided this would be a perfect place for a library as it’s proven to be,” Green said.

Moving all the books from the old library into the new library and getting it all set up from scratch was also quite the feat.

“I’ve seen this library go from a tiny little library to this much larger library, I’ve seen it go from being so busy that we would have well over a hundred every day in here to being slower after Covid because people now can read online, and they can get their free books online and most people have a computer now,” Green said.

And while some of the “foot traffic has slowed down” the library stays very busy with online reading, and with its many children’s programs.

“We get a lot of new people coming in, practically every day getting cards, so it still is a place to be. A library is kind of the hub of a community and here in this library we do so many copies, faxes, we notarize papers and its pretty much free, other than the charge for the paper, you are using a free service, and it is very needed here in our community,” Green said.

Green is active in a multitude of community clubs and organizations. She has been on the Christmas Parade committee for over 20 years and on her 3oth anniversary at the library, she was chosen as Christmas parade grand marshal.  She is chair of the membership committee for the chamber of commerce and is on the leadership committee. She is active in the Campbell County Rotary Club and previously served as Rotary President. Green is involved in the historical society, as well as a long-time member of the Lions Club. Green serves as pianist for Calvary Baptist Church. She also stays busy with her two daughters and six grandchildren and two great grandchildren, which are her “pride and joy”.

After 35 years “on the job”, Green said she still loves coming into work.

“I love seeing my people here at the library and going out in the community … there is always something to do and something going on and I never have a dull boring moment in my life hardly at all, I enjoy my life, I enjoy my people, and I enjoy my job.” (WLAF NEWS PUBLISHED-11/20/2024-6AM)