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09/24/2014 12:00 AMBack in 1976, 25 year-old Bob Hull heard of a job opportunity in North Branford and threw his hat into the ring. Thirty-eight years later, he's still enjoying every moment of his work as the town's Library Director.
Library services have grown and evolved through the decades and now Bob is happy to announce another change for the better. This fall, for the first time ever, North Branford's public libraries will open on Sundays. Beginning on Sunday, Oct. 12, the Atwater Library in North Branford and the Smith Library in Northford will open from 1 to 4 p.m. The schedule will continue through March 29, 2015.
The libraries will be open Sundays for a full range of services, notes Bob, including meeting availability in the Community Room, tutoring sessions, and all other uses. And, as on other days of the week, as long as a Community Room meeting starts before the library closes, it can continue after closing time. Bob also wants to emphasize that, thanks to the Town Council providing sufficient funding for the schedule expansion, there will be no change or reduction in library hours or services on other days of the week.
"There has been a public demand for it and the library board has wanted to do it for a while," says Bob, who brought the idea to the council for the first time during the 2014-'15 budget workshops, when "not only did the Town Council vote for it; they voted for it unanimously," he said. "They like the idea. Given that level of support, we want to make sure we do it and we do it right."
Bob and his staff did their research and have every confidence that the new hours will be a boon to the public.
"It's a new thing for North Branford, but it's not a new thing in the library world," says Bob, who polled librarians in Guilford, Branford, and Wallingford about responses to their Sunday hours.
"They all said they were busy and happy they did it. The only thing that would make them stop would be not having enough funds," says Bob. "It is an experiment for us, but we have the track records of other libraries showing it worked well."
What the new hours will do is allow residents another day to take advantage of two buildings which Bob sees as "cultural and educational hubs" for the town.
"Culture and education is our main focus. It always has been and it always is, even with the changes going on all around us," he says.
Some very obvious changes took place between 2009 and 2010, when both libraries underwent major facility changes to evolve into today's amazing buildings. While most may feel helping shepherd major building transformations would be a highlight in Bob's career thus far, that's not what makes him most proud.
"In terms of what I might be proud of that I've done here, the first thing people probably think of is the buildings," he says. "But the thing I'm proudest of is having a hand in building the staff that we have. When I look back on what I've done, that's what makes me the happiest, all those wonderful people."
Overseeing both libraries has also given Bob the opportunity to work simultaneously with double the exceptional staff.
"I like to see the staff here highlighted," he says. "That's because the ideas and the impetus for doing things comes from them. It's not this creative dynamic leader telling everyone what to do. What I hope to do for them is to provide the environment that gives them the ability to use their talents to serve the people of the town. That's my job. My job isn't to tell them what to do. Each one of them does their job better than I could! So I really rely on their ideas, and what I try to do is to get the funding, to get the space, to get the abilities for them to do the wonderful ideas that they have."
One such wonderful idea Bob his helping the staff work toward is the desire to bring "Maker Space" to town.
"Maker Space is often focused around things like 3-D printers and other technological tools that people can use to create things and collaborate with each other to make new things," explains Bob.
Guilford introduced a 3-D Maker Space last year and Branford has just ushered a 3-D printer and Maker Space into the Blackstone (look for that story appearing Oct. 2 in The Sound).
"This is a role that libraries are filling now-generally speaking, in bigger or wealthier libraries," says Bob. "I'm hoping to get us started in this direction; hopefully next year. We'll see."
Even though new and exciting things are on the horizon for North Branford's libraries, Bob adds, "I would like to say, with all the new technology, there are still quite a few books here, too! There are all kinds of reading you can access through the libraries. You can get books, you can get ebooks and emagazines. These are things offered through the library for free."
Of course, there are also a multitude of programs and activities going on at each building, from the regularly scheduled to special events. A recent list Bob provided for the Library Board's review includes Atwater adult scheduling for meetings of the Friends of the Library Book Club, the Saturday Cookbook Club, Fall Concert & Last Hayride (benefiting Cosgrove Animal Shelter), the Needle Art Group, and foreign film series, while the Smith's adult programming includes upcoming October and November author visits, puzzle-offs, and art shows of the new North Branford Art Association.
The Atwater Children's Room is hosting Wee Rock Toddler Times, Lunch Bunch, and Women's Club Story Hours as well as a pirate cove scavenger hunt and science fun night family programming, while Smith Children's Room offers a new Tweens & Teens Book Club, Tots & Tunes, Halloween events, and after school crafts.
A Branford resident who married a Branford native (it was Bob's Branford mother-in-law who saw that ad seeking a North Branford librarian all those years ago) Bob and his wife, Deb, raised their three children in Branford. In his free time, Bob enjoys reading and gardening, and he volunteers with Branford-based Connecticut Hospice.
As a young couple, the Hulls moved here from Massachusetts, where Bob had worked in a local library for two years after earning his degree in 1974. But ask Bob where he lives and he'll tell you it's North Branford's libraries.
"I'm at both buildings almost every day," he says. "I think it's part of the job when you're running both places. I work on the desk quite a bit, too; but that's actually my favorite part-I'm still a librarian at heart. The interaction with people is one of the real pleasures of this work for all us, or we wouldn't be here."
While he may be closing in on 40 years on the job, Bob says thoughts of retirement aren't on his radar.
"This has been my career and I'm happy with that. You're kind of a dinosaur these days if you can work at one place for so long, so I'm lucky," he says. "It's the people that I work with; that's what makes it so good. I live each day here as if I'm going to be here forever; but at some point, someone's going to have a real nice place to come to!"