Speaking Volumes : New Administrator Views Libraries as Bustling, Vibrant Community Havens

In Susan Goldberg Kent, the newly appointed city librarian, Los Angeles is getting a nationally recognized professional, a savvy politician, a skillful fund-raiser-- and she abhors quiet.

“She doesn’t have a bun on her head. She’s not stuffy, distant or intellectual but a real hands-on person,” said her husband of three years, poet Rolly Kent, who met his future wife through a writers workshop series she launched while she was deputy director of the Tucson Public Library in the 1980s.

“And she’s pretty fearless about not having the library be something stodgy,” he added, touching on a quality mentioned by several friends, colleagues and former associates who talked with The Times about the city’s newest department head.

The city Board of Library Commissioners made Kent’s hiring official Monday after she was recruited by city personnel officers during a nationwide search to replace Elizabeth Martinez, who resigned to take another job. Kent will start Feb. 27 and earn about $120,000 annually.

She becomes Los Angeles’ top librarian--overseeing the recently renovated Central Library Downtown and 66 branches--at a time when public libraries throughout the United States are striving to reinvent themselves. To one degree or another, they all face tight budgets, a changing clientele and an explosion in technology that is drastically reshaping the delivery of information.

“People have seen public libraries for so long as places of history and books and quiet. But we’re not,” Kent said in an interview from her office at the Minneapolis Public Library and Information Center, which she has headed since 1990.

“Good public libraries are busy places where you have students doing papers, business people researching projects and older people having conversations,” Kent said. The changes brought by technology, both in terms of the amount of information available and how it is obtained, are “just stunning,” said Kent, who sees a major challenge in figuring out how to turn the technological advances “into giving good library service.”

Kent said getting young children and their parents hooked on the library is relatively easy--offering lively programs and information they can use in languages they can understand. A much tougher challenge, she has found, is luring teen-agers.

“L.A. is doing a great job of appealing to teen-agers--through its use of multimedia and computers--and I’m interested in expanding on that. I want teen-agers to see the library as a great place to hang out,” Kent said.

In Tucson, she organized a program aimed at Latino teen-agers, who made videos of their experiences. In Minneapolis, Kent is widely credited with reorganizing the library system to make it more user-friendly and appealing to residents.

She launched a family literacy center in a poor neighborhood, started a series of cultural celebrations aimed at bringing more people in, computerized the card catalogue, forged partnerships with businesses and civic associations, and began a drive to replace the outdated main library.

John Skogmo, a bank vice president and former president of the Friends of the Minneapolis Public Library, called Kent “an extremely bright, energetic and articulate champion for the public library in our community.” He credited her leadership and administrative skills for a marked increase in library use and improved fund raising, and said her keen political skills enabled her to be effective while having to answer to many bosses, including the City Council, mayor and elected library board members.

Kent helped the library weather a political storm last year when pop star Madonna’s controversial book, “Sex,” was published and purchased by Minneapolis and hundreds of other libraries nationwide. In the uproar from those who wanted the book removed, Kent wrote an open letter to Madonna that was published in the Star-Tribune newspaper. It warned of the dangers of censorship while taking the star to task for profiting from the book but doing nothing to help libraries that were suffering attacks for defending her right to expression. Madonna made no response, but the book stayed on the shelves.

As a young woman growing up in New York state, Kent had her heart set on a career as a book editor. But she got discouraged when during job hunting stints in her senior year at college, publishing firms seemed most interested in how fast she could type.

Her roommate gave her an application for Columbia University’s master’s program in library science. While earning her degree, she worked at a Bronx branch of the New York Public Library in an impoverished neighborhood “and I loved it.” She worked in several library systems in New York before moving to Tucson in 1977.

Kent has been active in several national organizations and served as president of the Public Library Assn.

Television writer Gary Ross, president of the Los Angeles Board of Library Commissioners, said Kent was the clear first choice for the job.

Ticking off Kent’s list of qualifications, Ross said he was most impressed with her enthusiasm.

“She’s very excited about coming here,” Ross said with a slightly wondrous tone of a man who has heard his share of L.A.-bashing. “She seems to love the diversity, the challenges and the opportunity.”

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Profile: Susan Goldberg Kent

* Age: 50

* Residence: Minneapolis

* Education: Master of science degree from School of Library Science at Columbia University, 1966; bachelor’s degree in English literature from Harpur College, State University of New York at Binghamton, 1965.

* Career highlights: After working at several public libraries in New York state, Kent moved to Tucson in 1977 as coordinator of adult and young adult services. Became deputy director in 1980, where she planned and implemented the library’s fund-raising program. Became director of the Minneapolis Public Library and Information Center in 1990. Has held leadership positions in several national organizations, including American Library Assn. and Urban Libraries Council. Has served as a consultant to several library systems and has published many articles in professional journals.

* Interests: Enjoys traveling, the arts, cooking and--what else--reading.

* Family: Married to poet Rolly Kent; three adult children.

* Quote: “I want teen-agers to see the library as a great place to hang out.”