Katherine Gould knows her libraries like the back of her hand, from funding figures to upcoming events to remodeling concerns.
But in the hour that we spoke, only one question stumped her.
“Where do I think the most beautiful part of the library is? Oh…oh, I don’t know,” she said, falling silent for nearly ten seconds.
Eventually, she settled on the children’s section of the library, a wide-open room filled with light, art and rows of bookshelves. The afternoon hours are when it’s at its busiest. Even after 5 p.m., it’s still packed with school-age children who are reading, working and playing with one another.
“I don’t know though,” Gould said. “It’s all beautiful to me.”
Gould, a Redondo Beach resident and 11 year director of the Palos Verdes Library District, has been given the 2015 Library Director Award from the California Public Library Advocates. The annually-given adulation recognizes exceptional work with a board of trustees, library foundation or “friends of the library” group.
Though she is proud of the award, she feels that it’s a reflection not just of herself, but of everyone that works with the Palos Verdes Library District.
“Everyone on the team — staff, volunteers, trustees — are all super generous, and all together have allowed us to make this a terrific library, but it’s not just me.”
Much of her library’s success, she feels, is a result of her staff’s creativity. “They’ve really embraced the idea of getting into the community, creating relationships and partnerships to enhance services,” she said. Their entrepreneurial spirit has led the library to develop proctoring and passport services, as well as programs such as the “pop-up” mobile library.
“We’re not too respectful of hierarchy here; anyone with a good idea can try to figure out a way to make it happen,” she said, noting that a member of maintenance came up with an LED bulb replacement plan that’s saved nearly 25 percent of their electricity usage.
“We have an environment where everyone can contribute,” she said.
That environment comes from a bit of an unorthodox background. A native of Santa Barbara, a divorce and subsequent remarriage took Gould and her mother to Canada, where she completed school through her undergraduate degree. For her post-grad work, she made her way back to California to pursue a Master’s degree in Library Science from the University of Southern California.
From there, she spent three years working as a librarian before going into the corporate world. Her knowledge of systems and organization gave her an advantage and before long she was working in management for an aluminum company in Australia, staying in the metal industry from 1989 to 2003.
Wanting to change directions and get out of corporate life, Gould and her husband Don moved to Redondo Beach, where they purchased a home from within their family.
The pair vowed to take a few months to figure out their next professional steps in their new home when she found the posting for what would become her new career: “Library Director; library experience desirable, business experience essential.”
It’s been a perfect fit for her.
The Palos Verdes Library District’s status as its own entity, featuring its own board of directors and support organizations, separate from local governments, makes the non-profit entity as much a business as any other pillar of the community. And she’s ultimately responsible for every aspect of her libraries, from IT to personnel, maintenance to staff management.
“If you’re in a county [library system], you’ve got other departments who run those things; here, we’ve got to run the whole business, and we’re not set up to make a profit,” she said. “Our job is to make our revenues stretch as far as we possibly can.”
Though Gould jokes that there’s not a whole lot else one can do with a Bachelor’s in History, there was more to it than that.
The difficulties of a family system besieged by divorce took their toll on Gould, and her school librarian helped her get through it.
“She saw that I was lonely, that I needed attention, and she allowed me to come and help in the library,” Gould said. “You can change someone’s life by giving them a place to come and exposing them to ideas and thoughts and authors they hadn’t been exposed to before.”
That experience ties directly into her library’s mission of helping to make the Palos Verdes District Libraries a “third place,” a social area going beyond home, and work or school.
“We’re the only place that is for everybody in the community; it doesn’t matter if you’re rich or poor, have a home or don’t, what your ethnic or cultural background is or your beliefs are, this is a place for you,” she said. “There might be something that’ll offend you somewhere in these walls, but this is a place where everyone rubs shoulders against each other.”
Many of the beliefs Gould carries from her time in the aluminum industry still apply today, she says. One mentor in particular opened her eyes to the idea that the most important work in any organization is usually performed at the lowest levels on the organizational chart.
“People can debate who has the most important job, but if the bathrooms aren’t clean, then the experience that the public has sucks; if the people working at the frontline service desk re-shelve wrong, if they’re rude to customers…they’re the bedrock of the organization, and I really respect and value the work that they do,” she said. “You can have all of the managers you want, but they’re where the rubber hits the road; usually, we have what we think are good ideas, and they’re the ones looking around saying ‘Yeah, that’s not going to work.’”
Though she says there’s much to celebrate about her community, Gould feels that the way residents of The Hill band together to help their own is particularly special.
“There are so many organizations that rely on community support, getting volunteers and fundraising, and when community members see a need to protect and enhance their lifestyle, they roll up their sleeves and do something,” she said. “It happens in other communities, but maybe not as much as it does here. We just have to try and meet those expectations.”
Given the swell of activity at their libraries, and the fact that the biggest problem PVLD faces is a lack of space, it’s safe to say that the demand for activities at the library is a marker of their exceptional work.
Walking toward the exit and surveying the tables of students with books in front of them, Gould looked back.
“Anyone who says that libraries are defunct, that we’ve been replaced by Google? Just send them over here in the afternoon.”
