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For more than a year, the venerable old Bangor Public Library building on Harlow Street had sat empty, while workers completed an $8.5 million renovation project. By January of 1998, library director Barbara McDade was ready to move the collection—half a million volumes of books, periodicals, government documents, and recordings—back home to downtown Bangor.
Then the infamous ice storm hit. “We moved back during the storm,” McDade recalls. “We’d hired a company to move us, and they were only delayed by a day.” Waiting out the storm was not an option, since the library’s temporary base, a former Marden’s building on Outer Hammond Street, had been damaged by the weight of all the ice. “The building was leaking,” McDade says. “We got out of there just in time.”
Today, under Barbara McDade’s direction, the renovated library complex has become a centerpiece of city life.
When McDade began working at the Bangor Public Library, the space was so small that patrons weren’t permitted to find their own books in the stacks. The library’s rebirth began when Tabitha King noticed yellow caution tape on the library’s disintegrating steps, put there by city officials. “She asked me what she could do to help,” McDade says.
Seed money of $250,000 from Stephen and Tabitha King started a process that eventually transformed the 1913 building into a modern, comfortable facility, equipped with public computers, reading areas, a children’s wing, and, at long last, open stacks.
“I said when we moved back that we wanted to be Bangor’s living room,” she says.
A native of western Pennsylvania, McDade was familiar with the Bangor Public Library long before she worked there. “The Bangor Public Library is well-known in the library world for its large per-capita circulation,” she says. “When this job came open [in 1990], I jumped at it.”
Forget the stereotype about reclusive librarians: Since day one, McDade quickly became a fixture in the greater Bangor community. She serves as co-chair of the State League of Women Voters and the newsletter editor of the Rotary Club. She’s also the organist for the First Church of Christ, Scientist in Bangor. She even met and married her husband here; the two of them are so comfortable here, she says, that “I can’t even get him to go out of state on vacation.” McDade has been a leader in library circles, too, as past president and legislative chair for the Maine Library Association, working with lawmakers on funding and constitutional issues.
McDade studied pre-law at Juniata College in Pennsylvania and earned her master’s in library science at the University of Pittsburgh. She started a library service in rural Augusta County, Virginia, where she also established a bookmobile, and frequently substituted for the regular driver.
“If you ever want a rewarding job, you should be a bookmobile driver,” she says of a service that has all but disappeared in this age of the Internet. (Maine’s bookmobiles ceased operating in the 1980s). “Every stop was like a big party.”
In Morristown, New Jersey, McDade says she had her 15 minutes of fame as a defendant in a billion-dollar lawsuit filed by a homeless man whom she asked to leave the library. The case attracted national attention as it rose through the courts, and was finally decided in the library’s favor.
McDade enjoys the challenge of launching new endeavors, including Bangor Reads, held now every January, when library patrons are encouraged to read and discuss a book (this year’s title is The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde). And she cohosted the inaugural Bangor Book Festival in October.
“I think Bangor is just the right size,” she says of her adopted home. “I’m really glad I can know all my elected officials. You can make a difference if you want to. But it still has the feel of a frontier town. You can still experiment with things here, and people do.”
She also gets to work at one of the nicest places in town. “People in Bangor love their library. They’re comfortable when they come here, and yet they still feel connected to the world.”
Then the infamous ice storm hit. “We moved back during the storm,” McDade recalls. “We’d hired a company to move us, and they were only delayed by a day.” Waiting out the storm was not an option, since the library’s temporary base, a former Marden’s building on Outer Hammond Street, had been damaged by the weight of all the ice. “The building was leaking,” McDade says. “We got out of there just in time.”
Today, under Barbara McDade’s direction, the renovated library complex has become a centerpiece of city life.
When McDade began working at the Bangor Public Library, the space was so small that patrons weren’t permitted to find their own books in the stacks. The library’s rebirth began when Tabitha King noticed yellow caution tape on the library’s disintegrating steps, put there by city officials. “She asked me what she could do to help,” McDade says.
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Seed money of $250,000 from Stephen and Tabitha King started a process that eventually transformed the 1913 building into a modern, comfortable facility, equipped with public computers, reading areas, a children’s wing, and, at long last, open stacks.
“I said when we moved back that we wanted to be Bangor’s living room,” she says.
A native of western Pennsylvania, McDade was familiar with the Bangor Public Library long before she worked there. “The Bangor Public Library is well-known in the library world for its large per-capita circulation,” she says. “When this job came open [in 1990], I jumped at it.”
Forget the stereotype about reclusive librarians: Since day one, McDade quickly became a fixture in the greater Bangor community. She serves as co-chair of the State League of Women Voters and the newsletter editor of the Rotary Club. She’s also the organist for the First Church of Christ, Scientist in Bangor. She even met and married her husband here; the two of them are so comfortable here, she says, that “I can’t even get him to go out of state on vacation.” McDade has been a leader in library circles, too, as past president and legislative chair for the Maine Library Association, working with lawmakers on funding and constitutional issues.
McDade studied pre-law at Juniata College in Pennsylvania and earned her master’s in library science at the University of Pittsburgh. She started a library service in rural Augusta County, Virginia, where she also established a bookmobile, and frequently substituted for the regular driver.
“If you ever want a rewarding job, you should be a bookmobile driver,” she says of a service that has all but disappeared in this age of the Internet. (Maine’s bookmobiles ceased operating in the 1980s). “Every stop was like a big party.”
In Morristown, New Jersey, McDade says she had her 15 minutes of fame as a defendant in a billion-dollar lawsuit filed by a homeless man whom she asked to leave the library. The case attracted national attention as it rose through the courts, and was finally decided in the library’s favor.
McDade enjoys the challenge of launching new endeavors, including Bangor Reads, held now every January, when library patrons are encouraged to read and discuss a book (this year’s title is The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde). And she cohosted the inaugural Bangor Book Festival in October.
“I think Bangor is just the right size,” she says of her adopted home. “I’m really glad I can know all my elected officials. You can make a difference if you want to. But it still has the feel of a frontier town. You can still experiment with things here, and people do.”
She also gets to work at one of the nicest places in town. “People in Bangor love their library. They’re comfortable when they come here, and yet they still feel connected to the world.”
