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Director's life a page-turner
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| | | Stephanie Heineman. Courtesy photo (click for larger version) | |
June 04, 2009 | 04:15 PM
After 40 years of library work with the last 21 spent locally, Northport-East Northport Public
Library's retiring executive director looks forward to brisk walks around her South Shore neighborhood and weight training with her personal coach.
Her exit on July 13 won't necessarily bring about a change of pace for Stephanie Heineman, 64, who said, "I tend to be more high energy and I don't sit still very easily." Yet her departure does mark a change of face for the library, as Assistant Director Eileen Minogue steps into the role.
"It's very hard to get that kind of relationship as we had as a team — the two of us," Minogue said. "We've been through a lot, it's a long time. We just hit it off. … Where do you find that in today's work world?"
Having already begun to explore other avenues beyond retirement, the parting will nonetheless be bittersweet for Heineman.
"I still have so much passion and interest and energy in where I am. I just love doing what I'm doing," she said. "But I'm going to challenge myself to do something different."
She was elected last month to the board of the Long Island Maritime Museum in West Sayville. Her interest in the Great South Bay grew over the many years her family kept a 27-foot sailboat anchored there.
What Heineman leaves in her wake are a long list of accomplishments since she arrived in Northport in 1988. She oversaw the construction of the East Northport branch, completed in October 1997; and renovation of the Northport building and that branch's courtyard project, reopened in December 1998. Funds from a $7.75 million bond for the project were divided equally between the two buildings.
She also arranged to put cafes in both library buildings while coordinating lectures, art and other cultural exhibitions; developing programs for teens, particularly volunteer opportunities introducing them to community service; and establishing a lasting partnership with the school district with its special loan service, enabling teachers to call in requests for materials and have them sent to the classrooms.
She is most proud that people have strong ties to the library.
"They don't see this community without that library," she said. "I built these buildings with this community and brought the new trends in the library world to the community, and really did it in a way where we maintained our traditions. But we moved ahead to stay relevant and to have the community know that we're here every single day."
With the economy flagging, the library is busier than ever, with people searching for jobs, doing medical research and parents taking advantage of the free programs for children, she said.
"I think we've hit the nail on the head with what we do in this community. And we do it with great respect in terms of the money that we spend. And the taxpayers always endorse us," Heineman added.
Bob Little, chairman of the library board, said he was impressed with the recent library budget — an increase of $61,000 over the current year — a combined effort of Heineman's and Minogue's, in that it carried no tax rate increase.
"One taxpayer stopped me one time," Little recalled, "and said, 'I can't believe this. I thought I misread this. … No tax increase.' And we're not cutting services."
Little credits Heineman for connecting the Northport-East Northport library with the rest of the county's libraries Suffolk Cooperative Library System, and for being so responsive to the public throughout the building project.
"She sees the library as a community center," he said. "It should serve the needs of the community, not merely books. She's constantly moving ahead with these things. … The development has been tremendous over the years that she's been here."
It was Heineman's idea to establish the cafes, he said: "We had one probably two years before it became the big thing for libraries to do this."
Heineman's career in library services started at Ohio University, where she was a reference librarian. She then returned to her native New York — having grown up in Malverne — to do research for the American Association of Advertising Agencies before becoming assistant director of Middle Country Library in Centereach, where she spent 18 years before coming to Northport in 1988.
Her decision to pursue library sciences was likely a generational thing, she said: "In the days that I was in college, women typically went into teaching or nursing. I really wanted to go into law school but the circumstances did not allow for it."
With no regrets about her chosen path, she said, "It's a wonderful world to work in libraries. You get to really help people so that you feel good about what you're doing and what you're accomplishing."
In her retirement, Heineman said she plans on exploring other community service and volunteer opportunities, probably closer to home in Blue Point.
Some other likely pursuits are: working on Adirondack-style art of birch wood and leaves; playing golf; and sharing works of fiction and nonfiction with friends from the book club she just joined.
But Heineman plans to come back and visit Northport often, especially if she ends up working on a book about the day-to-day reality of library services. Also, she looks to stay active in Northport Rotary, of which she is a past president.
Rotary President Pete Engelmann said Heineman is not the stereotypical librarian: "She's actually quite a character. … She's much younger in social atmosphere than her years. She's just a really fun person to be around. And her husband, [Charles], too. … They're like a comedy crew when they're together."
The couple has two sons: Alex, of California, and Max, of Florida; a daughter-in-law, Amy, and an 11-month-old granddaughter, Chase. Heineman credits her father, 97, and mother, 95, as being "great role models in terms of what you can do with your life. They're very interested, active people. They don't sit around."
Her father, who was a special assistant to the chancellor of schools in New York City, and her mother, who with him ran Camp Severance in the Adirondacks, still host dinner parties and go to the theater, concerts, museums, movies and classes.
She reasoned: "The challenge for me is to make this change now while I'm still young enough to have the energy to psychically to know I can do it."
But, she admits, the transition from her beloved library and colleagues will be tough.
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