She calls herself low key. Though her presence has been anything
but that in her 25 years as the head librarian at the San Benito
County Free Library.
Hollister – She calls herself low key. Though her presence has been anything but that in her 25 years as the head librarian at the San Benito County Free Library.
Jo Wahdan will retire Nov. 9 from the local library where she’s championed a progressive outlook on library services, technological upgrades, an expanded book collection and more offerings for the county’s youth.
Wahdan will leave behind a legacy of a woman who overcame scarce funding to found programs like the bookmobile and organizations like the Friends of the San Benito County Free Library, a nonprofit that raises money and supports the local system.
She’ll leave proud of her hard-fought accomplishments and hopeful that a financially-strapped rural library can find ways to keep growing.
“I feel like I’m turning a page and it’s a new chapter in my life,” said Wahdan, who’ll move to the San Diego area where she’s building a home. “I’m looking for new and exciting things to do.”
Wahdan accepted the Hollister job in 1979. Raised in Monterey, she came to Hollister from Milwaukee, where she earned her master’s degree in library science before spending six years in that city’s public library system.
There, she was an outreach librarian and worked to provide services to Indian and Hispanic community centers. Wahdan, incidentally, comes from Pima Indian and Mexican ethnic backgrounds.
“It was linking the community to the broader library services,” Wahdan said.
She brought that same attitude to San Benito County when she accepted the head librarian post at the local library.
Wahdan believes every resident – rich or poor, no matter the ethnic background – should have the same opportunities to read and learn through libraries.
She started the bookmobile, which traveled to areas where library access was lacking, in 1982. The library expanded to include handicap access in 1986. Three years later, money donated by Ozeki Sake allowed the library to include a Japanese collection. Wahdan pushed and pushed through the years for more youth programs.
Wahdan credited her mother’s examples – such as a “worldly” outlook and a fondness of the printed word – for her own path in life.
“She always had a vision,” Wahdan said of her mother.
But in January 1993, Wahdan’s progress halted.
San Benito County government, which funds the library, was hit hard by the statewide recession. Officials closed the library.
Wahdan, though, wasn’t about to back down and let her momentum crumble. She recruited a squadron of volunteers and, only a month after its closing, convinced the Board of Supervisors there was enough support to reopen the library.
Two-term Supervisor Bob Cruz, who became known as a strong supporter of the local library, called Wahdan “Mrs. Library.”
“She went out there and she hustled,” Cruz said. “She got volunteers to take over, and our library is still our library. What can you say? She’s an asset to San Benito County.”
Harriet Breen has been a member of the Friends of the Library organization for 14 years.
“She just seems to be a real community-minded person,” Breen said. “She hung in there when times were tough.”
Wahdan never got the new library building she so passionately pursued through the years. Only a year after the library nearly closed in the early 1990s, though, she came close.
The state offered to fund 65 percent of the cost of a new library if San Benito picked up the rest. Wahdan said plans called for a 30,000 square foot building that would have dwarfed the current 11,000 square foot library, which Wahdan says is completely out of space. To her chagrin, San Benito County didn’t fund the project.
In more recent years, Wahdan has continued expanding programs for kids, including “Live Homework Help,” which offers real tutors through the Internet for students in 4th through 12th grades.
She’s particularly proud of efforts to offer more technology to users. She said it’s paid off for a lot of people who can’t afford their own computers.
Everything, however, isn’t rosy. Up until her waning weeks, Wahdan has continually struggled to keep up with the times.
“It has been very challenging over the years,” she said.
An example of that, the bookmobile parked for good in 2003 because of funding cuts. Still, she remains hopeful her successor can get it going again and foster further expansion of the local library.
Wahdan’s retirement party will be held her last day of work from 4pm–6pm in the house, so to speak, that she built.
“There comes a time when it’s time to move on,” Wahdan said. “I don’t see it as an ending chapter.”
