The director of the Long Branch Free Public Library, Tonya Garcia, was honored as the 2016 Librarian of the Year at the New Jersey Library Association’s annual conference held May 17 in Atlantic City.
The award recognizes exemplary recent achievement by a working New Jersey librarian making a significant contribution to the profession. The Librarian of the Year serves as a role model, enhancing the image of librarianship and advancing the positive visibility of libraries to the community.
Garcia was initially hired as a computer lab monitor at the library. During her early career there, she championed diversity services in the community and initiated the creation of the Virtual Career Center and other programs, such as Back to Work Initiative and Fresh Start Re-entry.
She has trained staff throughout New Jersey and has been invited to speak at conferences and webinars. She has published numerous articles and co-authored “Reaching Underserved Communities in Your Library.”
In 2013, she was appointed director of the library and has promoted the library as a community anchor, with a special focus on building and strengthening relationships with city departments, businesses and organizations.
Last October, she worked with the School of Social Work at Monmouth University to launch the brand new social work initiative, Community Connects, at the library. The library now serves as a point of service for many social service agencies and also has a social work intern in the building three days a week to answer questions.
“As a teen mother, I knew poverty. I knew what it was like to search for quarters to pay for just one more pack of diapers to last before the next paycheck,” said Garcia.
“I witnessed firsthand the cycles of recidivism that plagued my own communities and saw the absence of fathers in too many of my own friends’ households. And so, I wanted to do my very small part to stop the cycles of poverty in the city that I fell in love with. Therefore, the initiatives I created for the library were and still are very personal to me,” she said.
Garcia thanked the New Jersey Library Association as well as trustees and staff of the Long Branch Free Public Library.
“I consistently tell my staff that as long as we come from a place of good intention, everything else will fall in place. If we lead from a place of good, then our mistakes are not malicious, but acceptable ones to learn from.
“And learning from my staff is one of the great joys of my own leadership and mentorship. I share this award with the entire staff of the Long Branch Public Library. Their commitment to innovation, excellence and service inspires me to be a better director every day,” she said.
