Diana Rosapepe joined the Roanoke County library system in 1986 and was named the director in 2001. On her watch three new libraries were built in Glenvar, in South Roanoke County and in Vinton. Others (like Hollins and Mount Pleasant) saw renovations while she was with the county and, in general, libraries became more of a community center with computers available to the public and a wide array of programs. As of December 31 Rosapepe retired after 31 years with the county.
“The impact of computers and the internet … has changed our services,” Rosapepe noted shortly before she stepped down. “That eventually made it hard to operate from our old buildings. They just weren’t [made] for that type of traffic. Every time you put in a computer you literally took out three feet of books. That was the equation. If you were ever in the old 419 headquarters library [in southwest Roanoke County] it was a tangle of wires and computers and people – everything was jammed together. That’s kind of where libraries had gotten to.”
Rosapepe and her staff started planning for the future, then sought funding for new facilities, leading to the new South County library on Merriman Road, followed by Glenvar and then the new Vinton public library on South Pollard Street, which has literally transformed downtown Vinton and has helped attract other development there – like a new microbrewery (Twin Creeks) and several apartment complexes being built from repurposed former public schools.
Rosapepe, whose husband used to fly Lifeguard 10 helicopters for Carilion, (the couple has lived in several places around the world) said libraries have not been “book boxes” for quite some time; “it just took us a while to get the facilities we needed to offer the services we do now. They’re really a community center – that great ‘third place,’ which is a concept … it’s not your home and it’s not your work.” The South County library, noted Rosapepe has over a thousand visitors a day and “sometimes a lot more than that. They come here for a lot of reasons not [always] related to books. It’s a whole different world than we had before.”
She doesn’t expect new libraries to be built in Roanoke County any time soon with the competing demands for funds (renovations/expansion at Cave Spring High School is a 30 million dollar-plus project on the horizon) but down the road she expects to see a new building to serve the Hollins area. “That would really bring the four big libraries up to parity pretty much.”
The profession was very different when she started “about 900 years ago,” Rosapepe said with a chuckle, very much paper-dependent. Visitors had to be their own “’Google of the day.’ You had to know how to find everything, where to start. Now librarians for starters have become adept at helping visitors find the accurate information they require.” She also sees the evolution of libraries as a continuous process: “They should never be trapped in a mold. Everything changes. You have to keep evolving. Technology outpaces itself.” It’s tougher for public libraries, she adds, with funding typically not always in place to keep up with those fast-paced changes.
Rosapepe is “really proud” of the legacy she attributes to her staff as she steps down. “They do great work every day. They make it look easy. I think people don’t realize how demanding some situations are and how hard it can be to always meet people’s expectations. I think people like their libraries – and I think that’s a pretty nice thing to leave behind.”
Gene Marrano
