BERNE — The woman who was central to the Berne library settling in a grand new home, doubling its use, will be retiring soon.

At the Berne town board meeting on Dec. 13, Judy Petrosillo, the manager for the Berne Public Library, gave her routine report. She discussed a program to give children in the high school library cards, a new grant the library received, and a photography contest being held at the library.

When she was finished, Petrosillo also presented the board with her letter of resignation, thanking the board for its support over the course of her tenure as library manager.

Petrosillo has served as library manager for nine years, during that time overseeing changes such as a new location for the library. She will be leaving on March 1.

Petrosillo told The Enterprise that she now has two out-of-state grandchildren and one on the way whom she would like to spend time with.

“I just know when I’m ready to leave a job,” she said. “I think someone new would be good for the library.”

Petrosillo grew up in the town of Pleasant Valley in Dutchess County, and moved to Berne with her husband in 1983, an area between her job in Schoharie and his in Albany. She had a large extended family who emphasized community service, including a grandfather who was the town supervisor, encouraging her to give back.

Petrosillo enjoyed going to the Berne library, often bringing her children there for story time. She said she likes the patrons and employees of libraries, leading her to offer to help in 2000, when the Berne librarian Frida Saddlemire was computerizing the library’s system, and Petrosillo offered to do it for her, working over the summer. In 2005, she began working one night a week at the library.

In 2009, Petrosillo retired from teaching seventh-grade science after working for 32 years for the Schoharie Central School District. She had been working one night a week at the library for the last five years when was offered the part-time job as library manager.

“My goal was to do a five-year stint … ,” she said. “So it’s been a full nine years.”

She thought it would be an easy, part-time job. Though her job remains part-time, she says that it isn’t always easy. On Friday night when she spoke to The Enterprise, Petrosillo was preparing for a meeting to discuss the library’s annual report, one of her least favorite parts of the job, she said.

Her job involves planning, programming, and marketing; tracking statistics; raising money; and ordering books and DVDs after choosing them based on their reviews. She also has written a column for The Enterprise on Berne library activities, carefully constructed around a theme each week, and usually beginning with a literary quote.

Petrosillo’s term as library director has seen the library change its very form. The library was originally located in the town hall, with stacks of books sitting where the town clerk’s office now is and the children’s room located in the same area that town court is held. Petrosillo said that the cramped and dark quarters led to one patron telling her that they never entered section A through J because it was too dark.
The library’s board of trustees had intended to use part of the senior center at the old grange hall for the library’s new location when St. Bernadette’s church closed and the property was put on the market. Petrosillo saw many good qualities for a library in the former church, such as its concrete floors that could hold many shelves of books.

The town purchased the building in 2011 and the library moved there in October 2013. Petrosillo wrote a grant for the library to purchase the building, and later the library would sell the yellow house behind the former church, decreasing the initial cost significantly, she said. She added that four construction grants she wrote totaled $296,432 to cover the costs of the building and its renovations.

“It was a good buy,” she said.

Petrosillo fondly recalls having the preschoolers carry boxes of picture books from the old location to the new one. The boxes were color coded so that they could determine where to put them. But not every part of the move went as well. An individual had promised book carts to carry the rest of the books on the U-Haul vehicle that Petrosillo had arranged for but, when it came time to move the books, there were no carts. Instead, townspeople returned home to gather any boxes they could find and packed them with books to transport them.

“That was a very Berne thing … ,” said Petrosillo. “The community coming together and making that happen.”

She believes the new location has benefited the library since then.

“When we moved here, our business to the library doubled,” she said, noting that it is en route for many coming or going to the town’s transfer station.

“They just make it part of their weekly routine,” she said.

Petrosillo has since seen other programs brought to fruition. She credits Kathy Stempel with organizing the library’s pre-kindergarten program.

The library is next working on a “My Card” program for students at Berne-Knox-Westerlo, she said. With the card, students would be able to check out three books without any late fees and access electronics and programs at the library. Some online programs they could use either at the library or in the classroom.

As a library in the Hilltowns, the Berne Library is also of use to students even in the off hours for those without internet.

“I find a lot of people park in the parking lot even if we’re not open,” she said. She described hearing music coming from the parking lot and discovering a student sitting in his car on his phone in order to use the free wireless internet.

Petrosillo will also be leaving in the midst of a plan to increase the number of hours the library is open. The goal is to increase the weekly hours each year until 2019 by four. This year, the hours increased from 32 to 36 a week, and staff received a 2-percent pay raise. Petrosillo said she hopes to have regular after-school hours for students at the library in the near future.

She said she will miss her coworkers; the volunteers; and the Friends of the Library, a group that raises money for the library. But she is upbeat about other things in store for her.

“I’m looking forward to reading books instead of reading about books,” she said.

Corrected on Jan. 29, 2018: The number of hours the library is open was corrected.