by Ana Sandoval
DEMAREST, N.J.—Edna Ortega, the long-time director of the Demarest Free Public Library, officially retired on Monday, July 1. She served the community for 47 years.
Ortega started her career at the library in 1972 in the children’s reading room, offering arts and crafts in addition to guiding children to books that would create lifelong readers. Edna soon advanced to become the library director in 1983.
During the course of Ortega’s tenure, she managed the library’s entry into the Bergen County Cooperative Library System in 1986; its transition from a private association library into a municipal library in 2009; and then, a series of building renovations in 2005 and 2011 that included a new entrance on Stelfox Street, the addition of an elevator, a two-story addition on the Insley Street side and a teen room.
A lesser-known fun fact: she was also the inspiration for the library’s vast and whimsical collection of themed rubber ducks which live behind the Circulation Desk. The collection grew from patron donations after Ortega first purchased a Dewey Decimal duck from the Demco catalogue!
“A mother to a library— that’s how I came to see Edna over the years,” said Bruce Locklin, Demarest resident and former member of the Board of Trustees. “I watched Edna make the Demarest Library grow with a mother’s love and care. She really made it a better place, especially for all our children.”
As an expression of gratitude for her life-long contribution to the Demarest Library, the Board of Trustees and the library directors from local BCCLS communities gathered to dedicate a portion of the Demarest Free Public Library as “Edna Ortega’s Secret Garden.”
It’s a reading nook near the children’s room entrance complete with new kid-sized gliders and bean bag chairs. All are welcome to visit and to read, grow, imagine.
Photo courtesy Ana Sandoval