Julie Rothenfluh has a one-word answer when asked how she will feel Friday.
“Great,” she said with a laugh.
Friday will be her last day as executive director of the Naperville Public Library.
“This is a wonderful organization to work for, but I’ve been here more than 20 years. I’ve been a librarian for 40 years and my husband, he’s been retired for two years,” she said.
In other word, it’s time.
Rothenfluh joined the library in 1997, and has been executive director since August 2013.
“It kind of is,” she said when asked if overseeing the extensive $5 million in renovations at the three library branches in recent years is “the feather in her cap.”
“I was really glad we didn’t have four buildings, because it was three years, consecutive years, and it gets to you,” she said. “But the end result has been very rewarding, and it has immediate impact on the public.”
Seating was increased at each building. The number of study rooms was doubled at 95th Street Library, the newest of the three buildings. She’s pleased with the results.
Rothenfluh, 63, said her business “has changed tremendously” in 40 years.
“The type of things we do, types of questions we are asked, are very different from when I started,” she said. “They can be much more complex because the easy stuff you can find on the Internet on your phone.”
She’s proud of NaperLaunch, a support system offered by the library for small business owners, which offers classes on improving businesses that meet over 10 to 12 sessions.
“It’s been very popular,” she said.
Her own business, the library, has also survived despite the dire predictions she heard in college in the late 1970s “that we were heading to a paperless society.”
“What we’ve seen is very few have deserted the print book for the eBook … it used to be when a new format came in, the old went away,” she said in her lower-level office at the Nichols Library, 200 W. Jefferson Ave.
She’s glad libraries are still important to people. You’d expect that from the girl who caught the library bug in Sturgeon Bay, Wis.
“I’m from a family of nine kids. My father worked two full-time jobs, and every Saturday my mother would say, ‘Take them to the library,’” she said.
When she was in college, she was majoring in history when her mother said, “Why don’t you become a librarian? The world is going to always need librarians.”
She graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she then earned her master’s degree in library science. She worked a while in California, where she met her future husband, Russ. They have two children, Emma and Kevin. Emma is now a librarian.
Rothenfluh worked her way up from children’s librarian to head of children’s services, manager of the 95th Street Library, deputy director and eventually executive director.
“It’s been a great experience working at the Naperville Public Library,” she said. “We’re very tightly staffed. (We have) 244 (employees). More than half are part time.”
She’s battled through budget cuts — sometimes having to remind city officials that deeper cuts could result in cutting library hours — and suffered through staff cuts thanks to the recession.
“I think we do the most with our money as can possibly be expected,” she said, “and the community loves the library.”
It certainly does.
The three branches have 1.5 million visitors each year, which comes to 4,000 a day, Rothenfluh said. Those visitors check out nearly 4 million items each year, or about 11,000 per day, she said.
“So, people use this library,” she said. “It’s a great credit to the organization, top to bottom. We’re the second busiest library in the state next to Chicago Public. We had over 100,000 people attending our programs last year.
Chicago Tribune Sports
“We’re very proud of those numbers, and it means we are providing something of value to our community as well, that they continue to come back,” Rothenfluh said.
Yet, she won’t be missing the job Monday morning.
“I think I’m ready to move on, and the place is going to be in great hands with David Della Terza, the deputy director, taking over,” she said. “He’s going to be a great director.”
In the past week or so, she’s been busy packing up boxes with files and mementos, like her collection of oddly-shaped rocks that she found on walks.
And, now, she finally will have time to read works by her favorite authors, horror king Stephen King and mystery writer Louise Penny.
“In the last two years, I’ve had other stuff and can’t get to (reading). I’m really looking forward to just being able to do that. One of my friends who worked here retired in April. She said, ‘Every morning, I wake up, sit in bed, drink my coffee and start reading.’ I’m like, ‘Oh, wow, I want to do that.’”
The Naperville Public Library Board of Trustees is hosting an open house reception honoring Rothenfluh from 4 to 6 p.m. Friday at the 95th Street Public Library, 3015 Cedar Glade Drive. Hors d’oeuvres and light refreshments will be served.