When asked what the most fulfilling part of working in the library was, William K. Sanford Library Director Richard Naylor said it was spreading a love for reading.
“I’ve always cared about reading and thinking, and so helping other people do that is rewarding. Sometimes, as director, you don’t get to feel it as much as you want,” said Naylor.
He began his work in the Colonie Town Library as assistant director in 1984 and has been serving as director since 2008. Before, Naylor worked at a library in Kentucky after living in France and working construction jobs in New York. After 31 years, Naylor has decided to retire.
“You just kind of think, I’m full retirement age,” he said. “I just felt like now I want to do something different.”
Although he knows he wants to do volunteer work, Naylor said he doesn’t want to decide on what kind of work until he is actually retired after May 29. He said that people have been giving him suggestions, but he wants to be sure that whatever he ends up doing is something that will make him happy. The only thing he knows for sure is his trip to Europe in June with his wife.
With over three decades at the William K. Sanford Library under his belt, Naylor has seen significant changes to the library, some bad with economic hardships, and some good with changing technology.
“Richard is kind of the quiet general. He’s there. His door is always open. He’s always willing to listen, and he quietly makes his presence know. He’s not a roaring boss. He’s gotten the library through a lot of difficult things,” said Cynthia Seim, principal library clerk and Naylor’s longtime coworker.
He said that, by far, the most difficult aspect of being library director was budgeting issues. “There were actually two difficult times in the that 30 years, but it’s not that libraries are ever flushed with money,” he said.
In the early 1990s, New York stopped revenue sharing, resulting in every municipality facing budget cuts across the board, said Naylor. The library changed its hours to close Sundays and Friday evenings, and staffing was affected. The recession of 2008, which came after the Town of Colonie developed a large deficit, resulted in many staffing cuts.
“He’s on top of the budget, and with so many cutbacks, he‘s helped the library still continue offering its services that the library needs to offer, and the reason why we’re here. We want to help, we want to do this,” said Seim.
Despite the budget difficulties, Naylor made sure that the mark he left on the library was a positive one. He said that his favorite projects in the library were when something was being built.
When he first began working at the library, computers were just beginning to pick up in popularity, microfilm was still used, and the library ran on card catalogues. His first big project was to switch the system over to an automated one.
“My very first thing was to automate the library,” said Naylor. “None of the books had barcodes, none of the patron’s had cards with barcodes.”
Naylor said he remembered when companies were first trying to invent e-readers. In order to get material onto the devices, “you would have to do interesting things with your computer and a cable,” he said. Then the Amazon Kindle became popular about five years ago, and the library now has classes to teach people how to use the library’s eBook system.
He recalled that groups of students would be giggling as they retrieved magazines and books for research. Now, most magazines and reference books are online, but the library still has some materials that are too expensive for researchers to buy on their own.
“Technology has been big to him,” said Seim, “because when I started and when he started, it was the card catalogue. It wasn’t computers, it wasn’t online, it wasn’t anything like that. So computers have been a big thing with him. Getting rid of card catalogues, getting rid of that kind of institution.”
The second largest project was the second floor mezzanine built in 1989, which had to be built over the first-floor stacks. During the entire process, the library hardly closed. Naylor said the library resembled a Rubik’s Cube puzzle to keep everything moving. A tunnel was built through the elevator shaft so that people could still get around, he said.
While he will no longer be a part of those larger projects, Naylor said that in retirement he is looking forward to having more time for hobbies like photography and keeping up with the garden around his house, which was work he never had enough time for.
“That’s how I define work in one way, as something you don’t have time to finish,” said Naylor.
The library has already offered a candidate the director position, but the library board still needs to take a vote. An official announcement will be made next week.
