Mention the Cazenovia Public Library and two names probably come to mind.
Hen. . . the mummy: and Betsy Kennedy. . . the library’s longtime Director. But not necessarily in that order.
On March 4, 2022, after 42 years at the library, Kennedy will be passing the baton to a yet to be named new director. That successor will have big shoes to fill.
Kennedy’s leadership has left an indelible mark on the library. In 1979, the year she joined the staff, the collection was stuffed into the downstairs rooms of the original 1830 Williams house. Today the stacks fill the 1996 addition and are begging for more room. The budget back then was $20,000 per year, which has grown to more than $500,000 today. Staffing consisted of three part-time employees; today there are four full-time and 10 part-time employees. We can’t overlook the myriad programs that have been added for adults and children over the years and the leaps and bounds the library has made in the world of technology. When people ask Kennedy how she could stay in the same job for more than four decades, she says it was easy.
“It’s not the same job,” Kennedy asserts. “We’re adapting, changing, and flexing all of the time. Learning is a lifelong journey.”
Kennedy’s roots in Cazenovia and the library go back generations. She grew up here. Her parents and grandparents grew up here. Her great grandparents came from Ireland in the 1850s and settled in Cazenovia. Kennedy says she remembers standing at the circulation desk that was in the original 1830 section of the library when she was in elementary school and getting her first library card.
“I was probably six,” she recalls. “I was with my Dad. I was able to write my own name on the card.”
Eventually, Kennedy left Cazenovia to attend college at SUNY-Oswego graduating in 1973 with a degree in education, but returned to Cazenovia in 1976. She was a substitute elementary school teacher for a few years, volunteered for CAVAC, worked at E.W. Edwards in Shoppingtown Mall and eventually, in 1979, landed a part time position at the library. She says those interim jobs did two things to prepare her for her positions at the library.
“Working at CAVAC gave me so much confidence,” she reflects. “When I worked at E.W. Edwards, I learned customer service.”
Kennedy was one of three part-time employees at the time, working under the directorship of Jeanette Sullivan, a certified librarian. When Sullivan retired in 1983, Kennedy was promoted to the top job.
She didn’t hold a library degree, but that is not required in New York State if the library serves a community of less than 7500 people. But there was a stigma attached to that.
“Dick and Harriet Davis asked our board president, Ellen Chamberlin if she would ask me if I wanted to go back to school and get my degree (Library Science),” Kennedy recounts. “I could go to Syracuse University, and it would be paid for! I said, “Really? You bet!” The Davises funded it anonymously for years. They also paid for a computer. That was in the mid1990s.”
Kennedy says she had a very clear view of what she wanted to do at the library on Day 1 of taking over the leadership role.
“The first thing I wanted to do,” she states, “was build an addition. But, we had to deal with deferred maintenance first. The foundation, the chimneys.”
But she also wanted the library to be more welcoming, more inviting, and more convenient.
“We just smiled at people,” she laughs when asked what that meant. “I wanted to make it easy to find the things you’re looking for. We wanted consistency at the desk (circulation desk), to make people feel at home. We wanted to treat them as partners.”
They were simple changes that had a big impact and continue to this day.
That addition did eventually happen, with the doors opening to the community in 1996 after two years of intensive fundraising championed by the Friends of the Cazenovia Public Library.
An important addition to the plans was the small art gallery, which connects the new addition to the original building. It provides area artists with another much needed venue for showing their works. Kennedy considers the building her Number One accomplishment and the one of which she is most proud, but she’s quick to give credit to the Friends and the hundreds of community members who contributed to its realization.
“The second proudest thing I can say I did is get to know Hen (the mummy),” she states.
Hen the Mummy was the jewel in the Egyptian Collection that Robert Hubbard brought back from his Grand Tour of Europe and Northern Africa in the mid-1890s, but little was known about the 2000-year-old artifact. Kennedy decided it was time to change that.
It was important to her that Hen have a personal narrative; that he was more than just a mummy, but had been a living, breathing human being at one time.
“Our goal is to make sure Hen is respected,” she elaborates. “He’s a person who lived.”
Kennedy embarked upon a journey of discovery that began with science and medicine, but she had a problem. To conduct the CAT scans, x-rays, and biopsies that would determine the nature of Hen’s life and death, they needed a rather ironic piece of paper.
“We needed a death certificate to move him across county lines,” she says. “With the help of Dr. (Mark) Levinsohn, who talked to the Coroner’s Office, we got it.”
The Coroner’s “wagon” arrived at the library, ready to transport Hen to Crouse Hospital for tests. He was placed on a stretcher with a sheet over him and Kennedy jumped in the back of the wagon with Hen.
“He’s my oldest friend,” she claims.
Part way down Albany Street, an officer from the Cazenovia Police Department pulled up beside the wagon, got out of his car and asked Kennedy, “Betsy, is there anything I need to know?” From his offices at the Police Department, located next door to the library, he had seen Hen loaded into the wagon on the stretcher.
The results of the scans, x-rays and biopsies, of which there were several over the years, determined that Hen had probably had a cancerous tumor on his left leg and he had a neurological abnormality of his feet, which caused him to walk with stiff legs. He may have had lung cancer or tuberculosis. These results are not conclusive, but shed some light on the life of Cazenovia’s oldest resident.
Finally, the third and most recent thing Kennedy is proud of: the recent opening of Carriage Barn Books.
The bookstore sells gently used books, is in the historic barn adjacent to the library and is managed by the Friends of Cazenovia Public Library.
“It (the bookstore) was built on volunteer donations, grants. It was built on our community,” she states.
Carriage Barn Books is an outgrowth of the Friends’ annual summer book sale, which has been a staple in Cazenovia’s summer event schedule since 1978. Previously, the barn was used for book storage throughout the year. But in 2018, it underwent a skillful restoration maintaining the integrity of the original structure, but updating it for today’s purposes.
As Kennedy approaches the homestretch of her tenure at the library, she reflects on some of the changes she’s observed over the years. Paramount among them is the influence technology has had on how people interact with the library’s assets. From digitized catalogues, books, and magazines to providing internet access to the broader community, technology has revolutionized the role of the library.
“The core values are still here,” she says, “but how we deliver the message or the learning changes.”
She’s also observed the social impact a library can have on a community, providing meeting venues, gathering opportunities, programming options, and more to its constituents. The library can serve as a catalyst for community.
“It’s a place where people gather,” she comments. “You can play Scrabble, mahjong, or bridge with your friends. We’re getting people together, but we’re also supporting peoples’ passions.”
“I’m looking forward to not having a meeting,” she chuckles. “But I really think it’s time for fresh eyes. I think it’s time for someone with new ideas.”
Kennedy is looking forward to retirement, but doesn’t plan on vanishing into the ether. She wants to keep her toe in the water, to be accessible, but not totally present. She says it’s time to start thinking about another addition to the library and she’d like to be a part of that effort, but she feels it’s time to move on.
Written by Katherine Rushworth and originally printed in the November CazArts Newsletter. Rushworth, of Cazenovia, is a freelance writer and the former director of both the Michael C. Rockefeller Arts Center (State University College at Fredonia) and the Central New York Institute for the Arts in Education.
Awards (Individual, library, and building) presented to Betsy Kennedy
1990 – Cazenovia’s Parents Council for Responsive and Effective Education’s Unsung Hero Award
1992 – Girl Scout’s Lincklaen Service Unit Woman of Distinction Award
1993 – New York Library Association’s L. Marion Moshier/Asa Wynkoop Award for Distinguished Librarianship
1994 – Bill Magee presented a citation from the State Assemblyman honoring Kennedy’s library work
2016 – Central Library Resource Council’s Public Library Staff All-Star of the Year AND Public Library of the Year (*inaugural recipients)
2017 – Non-Profit Executive of the Year (Non-Profit Awards presented by M&T Bank)
2018 – Cazenovia Public Library was co-finalist for Library Journal’s Best Small Library in America
2020
– Preservation Association of Central NY’s CNY Preservation Award presented to Kennedy for the Carriage Barn Books renovation
– Cazenovia Preservation Foundation’s Commercial Restoration Award: Cazenovia Public Library (historic building facade and Book Barn)
2021 – Greater Cazenovia Area Chamber of Commerce Individual Member of the Year Award
