Eastside Library Director Eager to Get Started
by Flynn Tracy
Coweta County, Georgia Times-Herald
October 24, 2004
As director of the future Eastside Library, Barbara Osborne-Harris plans
to breathe life into the grassroots project for this growing community.
"For the year that I've lived here, I've seen tremendous growth in
Newnan," she said. "I want to be part of that energy."
Osborne-Harris currently serves as branch services administrator for the
Atlanta-Fulton County library system and was officially selected for the
local position by the Coweta County Commission on Oct. 5. She will most
likely start her new job at the end of the year.
Her work in Fulton County involves overseeing the 32 branch libraries in
the Atlanta-Fulton system, which serves the 865,000 area residents. The
system boasts an annual operating budget of $27 million and annual
circulation of 2.9 million library materials.
But her library experience did not just start there. The Manhattan native
and former Queens resident in New York found her calling several years ago
after exploring different fields.
She began pursing a nursing degree at Queens Borough College in the early
1970s, but after a personal experience helping her sick mother for two
years, she realized she didn't have the temperament for the medical job.
While she was attending Queens College part-time, Osborne-Harris was able
to get a job as a paraprofessional, assisting a teacher in a first grade
class. And that jump-started her interest.
"I really enjoyed it, but what I enjoyed most was how the parents and
children reacted to me," she said. "Now, from studying God's word, I see
we all have gifts and a certain ease with which we accomplish something."
The librarian describes that time as her realization of "her calling." She
enjoyed working with children and thrived in an academic and educational
setting. For those reasons, she decided to get her associate's degree in
early childhood education from the college and in retrospect, understands
why it was what she was meant to do.
While pursuing her new degree in 1973, Osborne-Harris married and became
pregnant with her first child, Jocelyn. She took a break from school to
focus on her child but didn't stop her emphasis on education. With
Jocelyn, Osborne-Harris fine-tuned her educational therapy, selecting
appropriate toys and instilling the importance of reading.
"Every experience in life is a learning opportunity," she said. "We'd be
walking down the street, and I would create an educational environment."
In 1975, Osborne-Harris earned her bachelor of arts. Adding to her
academic experiences at that time, she was instrumental in building a new
school from the ground up. She collaborated with a few others on Grace
Christian Educational Center in New York City and saw it grow from nothing
into an educational establishment. As interim director, she planned the
curriculum, ordered the books and oversaw design of the facility.
Soon after, she decided to pursue a master's degree in some field of
education. The teaching market in New York City at the time was tight, due
to a surplus in educators, so she decided to study library sciences. That
interest was compounded when a friend and neighbor told her Queens
College was offering a free fellowship in the field of library science. So
she applied for the fully-paid-for program and was accepted.
"The rest is sort of history, in a way," she said. "This is what I really
believe: Library science, for me, is a calling. And I believe that because
of the way the whole concept came to me."
While earning her master's in the 1980s, she worked part-time for Banque
Nationale de Paris' International Services office in New York as a
reference and research librarian. Awhile after she completed her library
sciences degree, she realized the corporate setting was not for her.
"I actually began to understand that work in library science was not
supposed to be in a corporate setting but a children's setting," she said.
And so she applied for a job with the Queens Borough Public Library in 1987.
"I really wanted to work with children," she said. "And I was hired. My
first job was as a children's librarian."
For her, libraries for children open up a whole new world of knowledge,
creativity and excitement.
"A setting speaks even if no one's in the room," she said of a library's
layout. "Books should almost speak off of shelves. There's energy in that
space. And there's a real connection between libraries and learning. It's
amazing how information can truly change a person's life. And the way you
get to learn the book is to touch the book."
While at the Queens library, Osborne-Harris worked her way up to assistant
branch library manager from 1988 to 1989, manager of the central library's
children's division from 1989 to 1991 and finally as manager of the
central library youth service division from 1991 to 1997.
In 1997, she went in search of a new library system, one that would give
her increased responsibility; and she found it in the Brooklyn Public
Library system.
"It was basically a career move and was a different level of challenge,"
she said.
At the Brooklyn Library, she started as regional librarian of the New Lots
region and then moved onto acting chief for neighborhood services until
1999. She concluded her experience there in 2003 as chief of neighborhood
services.
Osborne-Harris recently moved to Coweta County after her husband Reggie
was relocated with Kason Industries, whose New York office closed. Reggie
relocated in February 2003, while Osborne-Harris continued to work with
the Brooklyn system until June 2003.
"This is the setting I really wanted," she said of her desire to move,
too. "I had been ready to move out of New York for years, and then Reggie
had the opportunity to transfer. I wanted to see more grass, more trees
and some animals."
The couple moved to Coweta County, which would be convenient for Reggie's
job and wouldn't be too far away from Atlanta.
She was hired by the the Atlanta-Fulton system in August and commuted each
day to her office on Peachtree Street in downtown Atlanta. However, she
soon found the commute tedious and was happy to see the advertisement for
the position of Eastside Library director.
"I didn't want to commute to work anymore," she said. "The time of the
commute didn't give me time for my local community. Plus, I consider
myself to be a more whole person when I live and work in the same place."
Construction on the Eastside Library is expected to begin spring 2005 and
until then, Osborne-Harris will be working on her plans for the facility.
"I really just feel that all of my experiences in New York have allowed me
to come into this county and really develop library services," she said.
"What I'm going to find most exciting is crafting the library services to
meet the needs of our diverse variety of people."
She hopes to put Coweta County on the map for its library services and is
looking forward to working with the community and appropriate county
personnel to create something everyone can use and enjoy.
"It's gonna be fun," she said. "I'm very creative, and this gives me an
opportunity to be creative. I want people who don't see the need of
libraries today to see the role that libraries play in our lives. Some
people come to the library for pure social interactions."
When asked her thoughts on the idea of libraries becoming obsolete with
the dependency on the Internet and other technological resources,
Osborne-Harris said she can't imagine such a thing.
"I don't really see them going by the wayside anytime soon," she said.
"It's just a change in function, but the traditional services will always
be there."
Osborne-Harris lives in Newnan and has five daughters -- Jocelyn,
Kindalyn, Jennifer, Monique and Raquisha.
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