After five years, Carl Gouveia is stepping down as Director of the Seymour Library to accept the position of Director at the Fairport Library. What follows is an open letter to Gouveia from the Brockport Village Board.
An open letter to departing Library Director Carl Gouveia
from the Brockport Village Board
It’s been five short years, but what a lot you’ve brought to the Seymour Library and our community during that time period. To begin with, you restored public and local government trust in our community library after a dark moment in its recent history.
Your colleagues speak of your unwavering professionalism, the respect they have for you, and the excellent relations you have with library patrons and library volunteers. You are, in the eyes of those closest to the library, a model director.
From the beginning you threw yourself into the job in so many unconventional ways, becoming a specialist on HVAC, on plumbing, on computer technology, all of which were much appreciated given the library’s budgetary constraints. Taking on the responsibility for doing the library budget – not part of your job description – you doggedly trudged from one municipality to the other presenting the library’s case for financial support for the coming year, a truly thankless task. And when funds were tight you voluntarily took a cut in pay so your staff members wouldn’t have to.
You don’t live here but you threw yourself into the Brockport community as a willing volunteer. You served on the Town/Gown Committee and were elected president of the Brockport Kiwanis, just to mention two of your endeavors.
But what perhaps most stands out in your tenure as Director of the Seymour Library is your life-long passion for libraries and for learning, and for what libraries mean to a community. You brought that passion and that understanding to everything you undertook as director.
We are sad to see you go and we will miss working with you. You’ve left the Seymour Library in far better shape than you found it and you have made all of us proud of the great resource our community library is. We can think of no more fitting and deserved reward for all your efforts than to be leaving us for a library without the challenges of being managed by three municipalities. And how gratifying, as you leave, to see Seymour Library, under your directorship, become the Library of the Year in Monroe County. We hasten to add, however, that if Fairport is awarded the honor next year, we will be suspicious.
With our heartfelt thanks and appreciation we wish you all the best as you begin this new chapter in your library career.
Margay Blackman, Mayor
and the Brockport Village Board
