The end of an era

When the Hoover Library Board first asked Linda Andrews to be director of the Hoover Public Library, she turned it down.

The year was 1983, and she was director of the Birmingham Public Library branch at Eastwood Mall.

The population of Hoover was less than 30,000, and the city seemed like such a long way from Birmingham, Andrews said. Plus, there was no Hoover library yet to manage because it didn’t exist.

But then the mayor of Hoover at the time, Frank Skinner, paid her a visit and persuaded her to change her mind. “We were very grateful she did,” Skinner said.

Andrews said she liked the idea of starting something from the ground up. She took the nonexistent Hoover Public Library, and over two decades, turned it into the library with the highest circulation of any single location in the state, according to the Alabama Public Library Service.

When Andrews started the Hoover library, it had 5,000 books in a 4,000-square-foot space in the River Oaks Village shopping center off Lorna Road. 

Today, there are more than 293,000 books, audiobooks, movies, music CDs and other items in the collection in an 85,000-square-foot building.

In 2005, the Hoover Public Library became the first single-location library in the state to circulate more than 1 million items in a year, according to the library’s website. In 2015, circulation exceeded 1.4 million items, representing 26 percent of items checked out of the 40 libraries in the Jefferson County Library Cooperative, records show.

Heart and soul of library

Andrews in September announced she is retiring at the end of this year after 33 years at the helm in Hoover and at least 40 years as a librarian.

Andrews said she loves her job, but she believes her work is done, and it’s time to allow others with new vision and new ideas to move the library forward in the 21 century and keep it vibrant.

“I don’t have as much energy as I used to have,” the 69-year-old Andrews said.

She looks forward to being able to get up in the morning, have some coffee, read the newspaper, go for a walk and relax on her front porch, she said.

She also wants to spend more time with her husband, children and four grandchildren, ages 3 to 18, and to have the freedom to travel more, she said.

Eloise Martens, a Hoover Library Board member who helped hire Andrews 33 years ago and who remains on the board today, said she’s sad to see Andrews retire.

“She’s been the heart and soul of this library since we first started,” Martens said. “She’s a very hard and dedicated worker and has been for all of these years.”

The original Library Board hired her because of her enthusiasm and the way she related to people and her vision to make the library more like a bookstore, Martens said.

Skinner said Andrews brought a lot of energy to the job and was not a traditionalist. She is creative, innovative and thinks outside the box, he said.

She also had a vision for making the Hoover library top quality and user-friendly, and she accomplished that, Skinner said.

Embracing technology

Under Andrews’ leadership, the Hoover library has embraced technological advances and amassed a collection that includes more than 22,000 electronic books, more than 10,000 audiobooks on tapes and CDs, more than 5,000 digital audiobooks, more than 23,000 DVDs and 5,600 music CDs.

The library also has more than 80 electronic readers that can be checked out, as well digital hotspots for people who need portable access to the internet. The library has a technology hub, numerous computers and computer classes, online research databases and free Wi-Fi service, and it was one of the first libraries in Jefferson County to offer self-checkout machines. People also can renew books online.

One of Andrews’ proudest accomplishments is the opening of the Library Plaza, a 5,000-square-foot space that includes a café, comfortable sofas and chairs, a reading room with a fireplace, a newsstand with magazines and newspapers, a small bookstore and a stage for music performances and artist demonstrations.

Pat Ryan, executive director of the Jefferson County Library Cooperative, said Andrews has created a brilliant model for other libraries in the state and the South.

“Linda’s impact has been phenomenal,” said Ryan, who was the second or third person hired to work at the Hoover Library and who served as youth coordinator there for 14 years. “It was just an amazing experience to be part of the growth of Hoover and to be on that team.”

Andrews is really big on customer service and constantly promotes that with her staff, Ryan said. She’s also open to new ideas on how to serve the public, Ryan said.

Andrews was on the original executive board for the Jefferson County Library Cooperative when it incorporated in 1985 and served as its president for many years, Ryan said.

She and her staff have been an integral part of the cooperative, Ryan said.

“It’s the end of an era,” Ryan said. “We’ll all miss her.”

Hoover Mayor Gary Ivey noted that under Andrews’ leadership, the library in 2009 was named runner-up for the Library of the Year award by Library Journal, second only to the 62-branch Queens Library in New York.

“I think that kind of says it all,” Ivey said.

The number of people served by the library (more than 500,000 visitors a year) is incredible, he said.

In 1995, Andrews was named Librarian of the Year by the Alabama chapter of the National Librarians Honor Society, and in 2009 the Alabama Library Association gave her the Eminent Librarian Award.

Promoter of the arts

Elaine Hughes, a retired English professor from the University of Montevallo who served as chairwoman of the Alabama Humanities Foundation for several years, said Andrews has been a great promoter of the arts.

She founded the 250-seat Hoover Library Theatre, which brings in world-class musicians, plays and other performing artists, and in 1993 started the Southern Voices Festival, which began as an authors conference and has expanded to include a musical act and visual artist each year.

Andrews also brings scholars into the library for talks on important issues, sometimes controversial, Hughes said.

“She’s just a very fine person, and I think she has been a tremendous asset not only to Hoover, but to the arts and libraries in all of Alabama,” Hughes said. “She has a masterful gift for administration. She is very adept at working with people and getting people to work with her.”

Andrews said she is most proud that she has been able to hire the right people to do jobs. “That is the key to everything. That is the No. 1 important thing, and I think that I have an instinct for that,” she said.

The Hoover library has about 100 employees, about half of whom are full time, she said. She looks for people who smile and are friendly because so much of library work is about customer service, she said.

From 1986 to 1996, Andrews served as the chairwoman of the Alabama Library Association’s Intellectual Freedom Committee. “I have always been a strong advocate of not censoring and banning books,” she said.

She also is proud of the library’s outreach to diverse cultures, including English classes for the Hispanic community and others who wish to learn English.

Some people have predicted that libraries will become obsolete due to technology advances, but Andrews said she believes there will always be a place for libraries as long as they are sensitive to the needs of their communities.

Library Board member Michael Krawcheck said Andrews has kept the Hoover library on the cutting edge of library technology, but she never lost the art of providing personal service. Board member Hal Humphrey said Andrews leaves behind a legacy of compassion, care, respect and public service.

Andrews said she’s thankful she had the opportunity to work with a fantastic staff and looks forward to working with the Library Board to transition to new leadership.

Her retirement won’t take effect until Dec. 31, but Andrews likely will use a lot of vacation days in December and hopes the Library Board can pick a replacement before Dec. 1, she said.