\n Bill Finley Special to the Arizona Daily Star\n <\/p>\n
When you\u2019ve grown up on a wheat farm in northeastern Colorado, 25 miles from the nearest town, you remember the little things.<\/p>\n
It might be the summer serenade of the cicadas \u2026 a moon so close you could almost touch it \u2026 the special warmth of a fire on a cold Christmas Eve.<\/p>\n
For Amber Mathewson, the short list includes the sound of the Sterling Library Bookmobile pulling up in front of her small country grade school.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was amazed I could ask for any book I wanted, and the next month they would bring it to me,\u201d she recalled last week. \u201cThere was something magical about it, knowing that book was just for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Books have held a special place in Mathewson\u2019s heart ever since, and even now \u2014 two weeks after she retired as director of the Pima County Public Library \u2014 they are very much on her mind.<\/p>\n
\n People are also reading\u2026\n <\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe it\u2019s time to write one,\u201d she confessed. \u201cI\u2019m thinking about it, and it would definitely be fun to find it in a library someday.\u201d<\/p>\n
One thing for sure: Mathewson would know where to look.<\/p>\n
She worked in the libraries of her middle school and high school. Even when studying to become a doctor at Colorado State, she had a part-time job in the university library.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t my plan to become a librarian,\u201d Mathewson said, \u201cbut for some reason I kept finding myself coming back to library work. Eventually, I decided it must be my destiny to heal people with books.\u201d<\/p>\n
In her 34 years with the library system here, she worked in seven branches, managing three. She drove the bookmobile in Arivaca. She was the head children\u2019s librarian at Green Valley. She helped open the Miller-Golf Links branch in 1999.<\/p>\n
By 2012, Mathewson was the library\u2019s deputy director of strategic initiatives, and in 2016, she became the library\u2019s director \u2014 its 15th since the first library opened on the second floor of the old Tucson City Hall in 1883.<\/p>\n
\u201cI started as a customer service clerk at the Wilmot branch in 1991,\u201d Mathewson recalled. \u201cIf you had told me then that this is how my story would go, I would have laughed out loud.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Pima County Public Library is a sprawling network of 27 branches scattered from Ajo to Bear Canyon, Catalina to Green Valley. It has 400 employees. Its budget is now $58.5 million.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey don\u2019t teach you how to do this in library school,\u201d Mathewson noted. \u201cYou have to understand budgets, you have to understand people, you have to understand politics \u2026 where the money comes from and where it flows. You\u2019re a librarian, yes, but you\u2019re also the CEO of a pretty good-sized company.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even in tranquil times, it would be a lot, and the last nine years have hardly been that.<\/p>\n
Mathewson introduced new tools to help the growing number of visitors needing social services. \u201cThere\u2019s a reason all libraries all have a Help Desk. We\u2019ve always been very good at connecting people. That\u2019s what we do.\u201d<\/p>\n
She steered the library through a barrage of right-wing attacks on freedom of speech and freedom of access. \u201cWe\u2019ve had book bans and challenges for years, but nothing on the scale of what we\u2019re seeing now.\u201d<\/p>\n
She coordinated the library\u2019s response to the pandemic, which shuttered branch libraries for months and led to a completely new delivery system for library products and services. \u201cBack in the day, we waited for people to come to us. Now, especially since COVID, it\u2019s important for us to go out to them \u2014 both digitally and physically.\u201d<\/p>\n
Someday, though, Mathewson\u2019s tenure may best be remembered for the public conversation the library initiated last summer about the \u201clibrary of the future\u201d in Pima County.<\/p>\n
In a draft report that went to the Board of Supervisors Aug. 16, the library board proposed the relocation of the Valdez Main Library downtown and the closure of four other branches. Citing budget and staffing shortages, the library said the moves would enable it to pursue new ways to serve the affected areas.<\/p>\n
The proposal created a firestorm of public protest, especially from those areas affected by the closures, and led to a series of public forums to identify what role the library should play in the future.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t an easy time, but what heartened me was the number of people who stepped forward and wanted to help,\u201d Mathewson said. \u201cWe all heard loud and clear that people don\u2019t want to lose their libraries. Now we have friends in the community we didn\u2019t know about before.\u201d<\/p>\n
The library has moved forward with plans to relocate its downtown location \u2014 it will move into the former Wells Fargo building after the purchase is finalized and renovations are made \u2014 but the \u201cwhat next?\u201d conversation is still underway elsewhere.<\/p>\n
No one will be more interested to see where things go than Mathewson.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s interesting is that everyone who loves the library has their own thoughts on what a library should be,\u201d she said. \u201cHow do we take all that and then figure out what a library could be? It\u2019s great that so many people are thinking about that now.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for Mathewson, there are all these books to read \u2026 and maybe a few to be written.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have met so many lovely people over the years, I\u2019m wondering if I could write a book called \u2018Who I Met Today,\u2019 with a different chapter for each person. Or maybe \u2018Everything I Know I Learned Playing the Accordian.\u2019 We\u2019ll see. I\u2019ll have time to think about it now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Footnotes<\/p>\n
\u2014 Mathewson guesses it will take two years for the downtown library to complete its move across the street into the old Wells Fargo Bank building.<\/p>\n
\u2014 283,000 Pima County residents hold library cards.<\/p>\n
\u2014 The Himmel Park Library will close on Monday, June 30, for a renovation that will require 18-24 months to complete. All holds still on the shelf June 30 will be sent to the Martha Cooper Library at 1377 N. Catalina Ave. The Cooper branch re-opened last September after a similar renovation closed the library for two years.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The top stories from Sunday’s Home+Life section in the Arizona Daily Star.<\/p>\n
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