Here at the Princeton Public Library, we are lucky to have many exceptional employees who work hard to make visiting the library a memorable and joyful experience for every community member. One of my very favorite colleagues is Kay Fuger, who has worked at PPL for nearly ten years.
Kay is in the Lending Services department, and the rest of us in Lending are so lucky to work with her. She is calm, competent, and cheerful, even when everything else around her is chaos. And one of the most special things about Kay is her compassion. She always remembers to check in with her colleagues when they’ve been sick or stressed, or if they’ve been going through a hard time–a quality for which we are all very grateful!
What are your duties here at the library? How long have you worked at the library, and what was your first job here?
I work as a part-time Library Assistant, so most days you will find me at the Lending desk. When I first came in for an interview, it was for a shelving position, but as the interview progressed, I started to interview for the Lending Assistant position and now it has been almost ten years!
Did you go to the library a lot as a kid? Do you have any fond library memories from that time in your life?
I went to the library all the time growing up in Michigan. I would ride my bike to our local library and bring books back in my basket. My parents made sure we had books at home too. I remember having a collection of Nancy Drew mysteries and I still have a few of them on my book shelves at home.
When you’re not working at the library, what do you like to do in your spare time?
Most of my time is spent on house projects. Last year my husband and I built a fence and planted a garden for the first time. I also refinished a piece of furniture my Dad made for me years ago for a turntable and started listening to vinyl again. I also like to try new recipes so I check out a lot of cookbooks.
Before working at the library, what was the most interesting or weirdest job you had?
I am originally from the Detroit area, so of course, at some point, I worked for a car company. I worked for Chrysler in their in-house travel department in the mid 1980s. I worked in several areas, one of which was International Travel. My job was mainly to make airline and hotel reservation for Chrysler employees and part of the job included hand delivering airline tickets to the top executives. One of them was Lee Iacocca, who in the mid 1980s was Chrysler’s CEO and a big deal, as he was known for reviving Chrysler. A great perk of that job was being able to travel to visit hotels in order to recommend them.
What’s one thing you wish more people knew about the Princeton Public Library? Is there a service we provide that you think deserves more attention, or that you just particularly like?
There are so many amazing services at Princeton Public Library that I can still discover something new and interesting, even after ten years. I like to check out magazines (just not the current issue!), cookbooks, and books from our Home collection. I also like exploring some of our digital platforms like hoopla, RBDigital and OverDrive. It is also interesting to access Ancestry (in the library only) to do some family genealogy research.
And now for some fun lightning-round questions to wrap things up:
Fiction or non-fiction? Non-fiction
Comedy or drama? Drama
Summer or winter? Summer
TV shows or movies? TV
Print books or audiobooks/ebooks? Print
Card games or board games? Card games
At a movie: candy or popcorn? Popcorn
For vacation: sightseeing or relaxing? Sightseeing
Pride and Prejudice or Jane Eyre? Jane Eyre
Thank you so much for sharing with us, Kay. And to our community members, please don’t hesitate to stop by the first-floor Checkout Desk and say hi to Kay the next time you visit the library!
Image sources: Kay Fuger