By STEPHANIE TIPPLE
Features Editor
PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY, Va. — Dick Murphy, the Library System Director for Prince William County, has decided to retire at the end of June, drawing his 27-year career of working in the library system to a close. After starting in the county Library System in 1985, he worked hard to expand and advance it.
The Woodbridge resident fell into his career working in libraries shortly after graduating with an English degree from Georgetown University.
“I got that job because I needed a job, and my mom was working at the library and she said, ‘Until you can get another job, they’re hiring at the library. Why don’t you do it until you find something you like better,’ and I’ve never found anything I liked better,” Murphy said.
Deciding to make library work his lifelong career, he returned to obtain his Masters in Library Science from the University of Maryland. While Murphy was sure about the important role of libraries, he recalled that not everyone in his inner circle felt the same way at first.
“Libraries are going to be around for a long time. When I got into the profession, my friends and family said, ‘Why are you doing that? Libraries won’t be around for very long,’ and this is 1969. But they’re still around and they’re still popular after all these years,” Murphy said.
According to Murphy, a lot has changed since the time he started working in the library system.
“It’s changed…mostly because of technology. When I started working in libraries, there were no computers and no copying machines – they didn’t exist for the public back then. And of course, everything was in card catalogues…. People tend to think about libraries as books and obviously that’s a lot of what we do, but we’re really not specifically about books – we’re about content and getting people hooked up with things to read and that content can come in a lot of different ways,” Murphy said.
And some people weren’t always a fan of the transition and technological advances that the library made – a shared challenge.
“In general, people tend to make the switch, and it may take a little while, because people are used to what they’re used to. Our challenge is to try and help them make the transition. So we’ve done a lot of work in the last year or so, helping people learn how to use their electronic book device and working through all of the challenges of that.”
In addition to the changes to technology in the library, the communities in Prince William County have greatly expanded over the years, and the library system has grown to accommodate them. When Murphy started, the library system consisted of two full service libraries and two neighborhood libraries. That number has grown into four full-service libraries and two neighborhood libraries.
“There’s been a huge amount of growth since when I got here in 1985, with new buildings and trying to setup a network of new buildings and that’s what we needed to do, to make it work for the population,” Murphy said.
One final development that Murphy is proud to be a part of are the design plans for two more libraries in Montclair and Gainesville, which are scheduled to be completed in the next few years.
“We’ll have the designs finished for them by the time that I leave, by June, and I feel very fortunate to have been able to stay until the plans have been finished and to turn over the reigns to complete the construction. I’m very excited about it,” Murphy said, going on to say that this is the first new construction of libraries in the county since 1994.
A large source of pride for Murphy in his role as Library Director are the wide array of programs that the library offers to the community – something Murphy feels that many may not be aware of.
“The biggest thing we do every year is the Summer Quest reading program; 18,000 kids participate in that every summer and in the Teen Summer Reading program, another 3,000 to 4,000 teens get involved with that,” Murphy said. In addition to the summer reading programs, the libraries offer story hour for children, book clubs, computer literacy classes and other recreational activities.
For Murphy, his retirement is bittersweet.
“I leave with mixed emotions because I love it; I love the people who work here in the library, I love working with people in the county government, I have a very supportive Library Board. But it’s time – I’m past my due date and I’ve been hanging on to do the designs for the two new libraries. I’m healthy, but I’ve got lots of plans to travel. It’s going to be nice to be able to do things with family, while I’m healthy to do it, so it’s pretty mixed emotions and it’s just time to turn over the reigns to somebody else,” Murphy said.
