Pasco Libraries Director Starts A New Chapter

When libraries throughout Pasco County open their doors today, they’ll do so for one of the first times in decades without Linda Allen on the payroll.

The county’s library director retired Feb. 4 after a 23-year career with Pasco. She began as assistant director for support services in 1988 and was promoted to director in June 2003. Since coming on board, Allen has watched the library system grow from 10 employees at three small locations to nearly 200 employees spread out over seven locations.

So, why retire now?

“You get to an age when you look around and you say they need some young blood,” Allen said. “It felt like the right thing to do.”

Looking back on the years, Allen said she and her staff have a lot to be proud of.

“When I took the job, there wasn’t really a library system,” she said. “I got to do it all from scratch. That’s why I took the job. I (got) to build my own library system. That has been a tremendous experience.”

Allen pointed out that other nearby counties benefitted from Andrew Carnegie’s late 1880s to early 1900s push to get libraries built. The Scottish-American businessman paved the way for more than 2,500 libraries across the country to get built. Pasco did not receive such an early start.

Despite this, Allen and her staff grew a system that has received multiple accolades on the state and national level. Just last year, the system won the John Cotton Dana Award for public relations from the American Library Association and the Florida Public Library Website of the Year. Allen was also named Florida Librarian of the Year.

She credits her staff for the library system's success.

“We’ve accomplished so much together,” she said.

During her Feb. 4 retirement party, staff members, county and library officials expressed their sadness at Allen’s departure.

“She is everything you want in a director,” said Wendy Rutherford, the Hudson Library’s children’s librarian. “She’s personable. She’s compassionate. She’s a great person.”

“The library with Linda is like Never Never Land ... everything is possible,” said Pasco County Commissioner Pat Mulieri. “She has made such advances. The library without her will not be the same.”

Charlie Parker of the Tampa Bay Library Consortium said praise for Allen extends well beyond Pasco.

“You think Linda belongs to you – she belongs to all of the libraries in Florida,” he said. “They (other libraries) look to see how Pasco does it. Pasco’s got a rep, it just does.”

No decision has been made on who will take Allen’s place, Mulieri said.

As for Allen, who began her library career in 1965 working as a student assistant in her home state of Tennessee, said she intends to kick back, relax and do some things for herself now, she said.

“(I want to) just be retired for a while and do whatever it occurs to me to do at the moment,” she said.