Leader of Community Library of Allegheny Valley retiring after 3 decades

Kathy Firestone has worked as a librarian for three decades and yet rarely has time to pick up a book.

That might change soon.

Firestone, of Allegheny Township, is retiring Saturday from her post as executive director at Community Library of Allegheny Valley in Harrison.

“I have no plans,” she said. “I’m going to go where the spirit takes me.”

Firestone will be succeeded by Assistant Director Suzy Ruskin, a resident of Dormont.

After decades on the clock, managing the library’s $300,000 operating budget and more than 2,000 patron visits a month, Firestone said she had to talk herself into the decision to retire.

“I’ve never regretted coming to work,” she said. “I always looked forward to the next day.”

A one-time English teacher in the Fox Chapel Area School District, Firestone took time off to start a family. But when her son went off to school, “I was right out the door behind him,” she said, laughing. “I needed to be at work.”

Firestone worked as a substitute teacher in the Leechburg Area and Kiski Area school districts before taking a part-time job as a clerk at Peoples Library in New Kensington. It wasn’t long before she transitioned to children’s librarian and fell in love with her new career.

It was a supervisor there who prodded Firestone to enroll in graduate school at the University of Pittsburgh to earn her master’s degree in library sciences.

About a year later, she got the job at Community Library, housed at the time in an old three-story building along Sixth Avenue in Tarentum.

“Everything was different then,” Firestone said. “We had card catalogs and no technology.

“The first piece of tech that we got was a refurbished fax machine, and we thought that was great.”

At the same time, the Allegheny County Library Association was born. In 1993, the Allegheny County Regional Asset District (RAD) and its 1% sales tax was established, providing core funding to libraries.

Firestone spent the next six years campaigning across several states to raise $1.2 million for a new library site just off Freeport Road in Harrison.

“I spent 24/7 with that project,” she said, from the community room in that library, which opened in 1998.

When construction finally culminated at the intersection of Montana Avenue and Broadview Boulevard, just across from the former Blessed Sacrament Parish, the ribbon-cutting was attended by Michele Ridge, the wife of then-Gov. Tom Ridge and a librarian who had directed Erie County’s system.

Unfortunately, Firestone could not be there.

“It was the same day as my mother’s funeral,” Firestone said. “All those years of work and I had to miss it.”

Cindy Homburg, a library board member, said Firestone has made an indelible mark on literacy efforts in the region.

“She’s done a lot to bring the library up to date with technology and other programs,” Homburg said. “Plus, she’s good to work with. She has an amazing way about her that people like.”

Library use swells despite population loss

Since the Harrison site opened 23 years ago, patronage has swelled despite population loss in its coverage area.

The library serves Brackenridge, Tarentum, Harrison, Fawn, East Deer and Frazer. It has more than 75,000 books, CDs, movies and other items for people to check out on the spot. Other items can be ordered from member libraries across the county.

Likewise, library programs have multiplied for all ages and interests to include story times, quilt show, book clubs, STEM classes, knitting, genealogy and lessons on Medicare for senior citizens.

Prior to the library’s opening, the Natrona Heights section of Harrison was serviced only by an occasional county Bookmobile.

For more than two decades, library staff maintained both branches until the site in Tarentum became a financial drain. It closed in 2019, just before the covid pandemic forced operations into lockdown.

“It was traumatic,” Firestone said. “Closing a library, to a librarian, tears you apart. It wasn’t heavily used, but a lot of people depended on it.”

Firestone still hopes to see alternate options open up for book lending in Tarentum and Brackenridge.

“Every municipality doesn’t have to have a library building, but there has to be access to books,” she said.

The Harrison facility, which Firestone said began as a pipe dream, has now become the cornerstone of the community.

“The community has been very generous. We’ve been at wits’ end so many times and something always comes through,” she said. “To see it become such an integral part of the area is what I’m most proud of.”