By Andrew Hackmack
Last month, she was unanimously appointed by the village board to serve as the director of the Henry Waldinger Memorial Library.
Eng had been serving as acting director since June when the library's longtime leader, Marshall Botwinick, retired. She grew up in Valley Stream but never expected that this is where she would end up.
"I had no aspirations to be a librarian initially," she said.
When Eng was in high school, she applied to the library to be a page -- a person who reshelves the books -- but was turned down. In 1973 she was in college and studying English on her was to a career in journalism. She got a part-time summer job at the library as an administrative aide.
After a few years of college, she began to pursue a teaching career, but was encouraged by Botwinick to become a librarian. Eng earned her Bachelor's degree from Vassar College in history and education but then went on to pursue her Master's degree in library science from Columbia University.
In 1979, Eng became full-time at Henry Waldinger and was named assistant director in 1996. The assistant director position was created, she said, because the library was in a period of great transition. Through the Nassau Library System, Valley Stream was computerizing all of its information, a process Eng said took about 2 1/2 years to complete.
Eng, with the help of part-time staff and students, had to input information for more than 100,000 items in the library's collection and data for about 10,000 patrons. In the end, it was worthwhile process.
"The automation makes the collection more accessible to the public," she said.
For example, she said, someone can look to see if the library has a certain item from the comfort of their own home. It also provides for easier borrowing from other libraries in the Nassau County system.
"Our patrons can go elsewhere; their patrons can come to us," she said. "They have access to far beyond what any single library is going to own."
Eng said one of her areas of interest has been literacy at the young adult level. She started the first summer reading club a decade ago for teenagers and would now like to add a winter reading program.
Overall, she said the demand for library programs has increased over the past few years. Parents are looking for meaningful activities to do with their children that are also educational. Library programs fit that bill, she explained.
Eng said the one difficulty has been adding more adult programs because there simply isn't space for that.
"Not having a meeting room has really held us back on that," Eng said. She added there have been talks in the past of expanding the library and would hope to see that issue revisited. The Village of Valley Stream owns and maintains the building.
Eng said with the support of the village board, the library was most recently renovated in 2005.
As the library director, Eng oversees a budget of about $1.2 million. Each year she will be responsible for presenting a budget request to the village board. She has knowledge of this process, working in the past with Botwinick to put together the annual spending proposal.
Eng said she plans to spend her first six months as director reviewing all that the library has to offer and seeing if any improvements are necessary. She is not looking to "re-invent the wheel," but rather build on what is already in place.
She encourages members of the public to make suggestions for new materials or programs. In her next budget proposal, she'd like to have some new ideas to bring to the board.
Eng hopes her experience as assistant director and under the mentorship of Botwinick will help he be successful in the position.
