When Anita Vassallo was 15, she started a job at the then-Four Corners Library, a small storefront operation in a Silver Spring shopping center.
More than five decades later, she is stepping away from a job she has always found to be interesting and satisfying.
Vassallo has moved around the Montgomery County Public Libraries (MCPL) system, working at almost every one of the county’s 22 branches. She will retire June 1 as director of a system that has more than 400 employees and received $53 million in county funds this year.
It also boasts a collection of 7.7 million items. Prior to the pandemic, three-quarters of the library’s collections were books. Now, only 25% are physical books. The rest are digital items.
When she began her career, librarians were the go-to people for all kinds of questions. If they didn’t have the information, they surely knew which book held the answers.
Now, with the internet, the job of a librarian has changed greatly. They are much more people and service oriented, Vassallo said.
She worries about trends to ban books and is glad she works in Montgomery County where that is not a concern, especially after Gov. Wes Moore signed the Freedom to Read law in April.
