VOORHEESVILLE — When The Enterprise spoke to Voorheesville librarian Suzanne Fisher yesterday, she was preparing Ceylon punch—a concoction of tea and fruit—for a book group. The group was going to discuss The Hamilton Case, Michelle de Kretser’s historical-fiction novel about colonial Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Fisher explained, and she wanted to serve something that went with the book.
"I do go all out," Fisher said. "I’ve been told I’m rather obsessed."

Fisher’s obsession has paid off. She has been selected as one of the 27 winners of the fifth annual New York Times Librarian Award. Over 1,200 public library librarians from across the country were nominated for the award, which includes a $2,500 cash prize.

Fisher was nominated by Dennis Sullivan, a regular Voorheesville Public Library patron, the village’s historian, and the editor of a respected journal on justice.
In his nomination, Sullivan wrote: "[Fisher] has shown me, and our community at large, what it means to be a dedicated civil servant, what it means to be a source of inspiration as she injects life into the library and the community’s young and old alike...When you come into our library, Suzanne is the person who sends you out a far richer person—always!...She is the jewel in our library’s crown."

When Sullivan told her of the nomination, Fisher said, she was flattered. After a while, though, she said, she forgot about it until a call came from the New York Times.
"I was just flabbergasted. I didn’t really expect to get it," Fisher said.

Winning the award is nice, Fisher said; it’s the greatest achievement of her career. Even greater, she said, is the fact that the award exists at all.
"I think the thing that pleases me the most is somebody took the time and the effort to recognize public library librarians," Fisher said. "It’s not a status job. It’s not a highly paid job."

Fisher, of Albany, is the head of adult services at Voorheesville. She has worked in the library for 17 years. Before that, she was on the reference staff at Union College in Schenectady.

Fisher didn’t grow up in a family that read a lot. It was a librarian who showed her how to love books.
"There was a librarian in elementary school who really inspired me, who gave me good books and encouraged me," Fisher said. "I guess that stayed with me."

That inspiration stayed with her after she finished college with a degree in French and decided to earn a master of library sciences degree at the University at Albany.

Librarian is a good career for a humanities student, Fisher said.
"I always say, ‘I know a little about a lot of things,’" she said.

Sullivan noted Fisher’s wide range of knowledge in his nomination.
"I soon found out that this librarian could talk with authority not only when she assisted me with a difficult reference question about Peter Stuyvesant, but also when she offered information on a good restaurant in Portland, Maine, or spoke about the influence of the Trappist monk, Thomas Merton, on the monastic world," Sullivan wrote.

Besides her monthly book-discussion group and her duties as a reference librarian, Fisher organizes an annual classical music concert at the library, and writers’ workshops.

The most recent workshop was led by Vermont mystery novelist Archer Mayor.
"I think this area has a lot of opportunities to hear writers, but I don’t see a lot of opportunity for people to actually learn from a published and successful writer how to write," Fisher said.

Recently, Fisher organized the library’s first book-discussion field trip. After reading The Glorious Cause, by Jeff Shaara, a novel about the Revolutionary War, Fisher led 34 people on a trip to the Saratoga Battlefield for a guided tour by a University at Albany history professor.

The event was a hit, Fisher said, with people asking for more events like it.
"I like to try to be creative and come up with new things," she said.

Though the popular perception is that, with the Internet and television, libraries are becoming irrelevant, Fisher doesn’t believe that.
"People say the end of reading is coming and that’s not true," she said. "There is still that core love of literature. Most of the librarians I know, that’s why we’re here."