County
Librarian set to retire after 15 years
After serving Imperial
Valley for more than 20 years, the last 15 as the County Librarian, Connie
Barrington is now set to retire. The new county librarian will begin on March
4.
“It was hard to make
the decision, I really enjoyed it,” Barrington said. “It’s time for someone
young with a new vision to continue to expand on what we have.”
Barrington who is from
Chicago came into the valley with her husband in the 1980s after he convinced
her to come and experience living in the Valley.
She held several
positions early in her career, before getting appointed as the county librarian
Barrington was an assistant to the director of the Brawley Library where she
began to get involved with the Adult Literacy Program in 1989.
“I think that with the
budget that we’ve had, we were able to provide great services for the
community,” Barrington said. “The library is the best underutilized resource in
the Valley.”
Despite always having
a limited budget to work with she feels proud to have been able to expand the
services they provide the community and adapt with the times.The library is
working to allow people to check out eBook readers and have constantly upgraded
their software and connections to allow its users to access the resources and
information they need with ease.
“People only think of
books when it comes to the library but we’re so much more than that,”
Barrington said.
Now with retirement
looming, she said that a friend of hers adviser her not to commit to anything
for the first six months of her retirement. She does intend to do a lot of
traveling but also wants to remain involved with the literacy program, although
she still doesn’t know to what capacity.
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