On July 3, Alexandra Giambruno — known to her young patrons as “Mrs. G” — worked her last day as the head of children’s services at the East Hampton Library, a position she had held for 22 years. She had given her notice two months earlier, and she and Peter, her husband of more than three decades, were both set to retire on the same day.
“It’s funny because I said earlier, ‘Peter, we should do something tonight.’ He goes, ‘Well, what should we do?’ “ Ms. Giambruno said in her office on July 3. “But, you know, it will give me the chance to do things I haven’t had time to do. I’ve always wanted to volunteer at animal shelters, and to get back to playing piano — I haven’t done that at all. It’s an adjustment, but I know I’ll be able to do it.”
Ms. Giambruno grew up in Huntington, and, though her mother was a library director and urged her toward the field “for years,” she was initially hesitant to follow her down that path. “She kept saying to me, ‘Be a librarian. It’s a good field. It’s a kind profession.’ But I had graduated from college in the management and marketing field. I had various jobs, I commuted to the city — I did all that stuff — but nothing was satisfying. So I guess she wore me down, and thank God she did.”
She enrolled in library school, and after graduating moved to Coram for a position at the Port Jefferson Library, where she was working when she met, and married, Mr. Giambruno. The couple moved to Shelter Island after the birth of their first daughter, and Ms. Giambruno needed to find a full-time job in the area to help pay the bills. When she saw that the East Hampton Library was looking to hire somebody to run the children’s wing, she felt “so lucky.”
“It’s so gratifying to watch children grow up in the library. Many times parents will come in and sometimes kids are struggling, or they’re just not interested in reading, and we will help guide the child and also the parents because it’s frustrating for them,” she said. “But it’s so important at that time in their life to really give them this little push — maybe by giving them books that are fun to read. It’s training the brain and keeping it active so that when they start school in the fall, it’s primed and ready to go.”
The children’s department has changed considerably over the course of Ms. Giambruno’s tenure — it now has iPads for the children to use, and entire books can be downloaded onto digital devices in a matter of seconds. She knows that it will continue to change after her departure which, she said, is the way “it should be.” She believes that Joe Brondo, who worked with her as a children’s librarian and will be succeeding her as the next head of children’s services, will take the department “to the next level.”
“Joe is very tech-savvy, and that technology is really important. And, you know, they’ll do different kinds of programs. I’m not a fuddy-duddy that way, in terms of, ‘oh, well, we didn’t do it that way.’ No. We need to improve. This is for our public, for our families, our children, and we want this to be a go-to place for people to come to — and you’re getting kids into the library that weren’t coming in before.”
Still, she was finding it hard to say goodbye to her patrons and co-workers. “They’re excited for me, I’m excited for me, but I’m also very sad.” The week before, the director of the library, Dennis Fabiszak, had formally named the windmill-shaped seating area in the children’s wing after her. “It says, ‘In honor of Alexandra Giambruno.’ It’s one of those things, like, wow. I didn’t expect that. It’s very touching to me.”
She plans to return for “pop-in” visits from time to time, she said — after the summer, when the Shelter Island ferry quiets down again. “Things can just be in slow motion. I won’t have to get up at 5:20 in the morning and get the boat and come over here and so forth.”
“I’ve been struggling knowing I have to do this. I knew it would happen over the next couple of years, because I don’t want to work until I drop. It would be different if I was like, ‘Get out of here, I don’t care about this place.’ But it’s been wonderful working here. It really has been.”