By LEAH WEATHERSBY

This September the Green Lake Library will lose a mainstay: Branch Manager Toni Myers.

Myers, who will turn 60 in October, is retiring this month after 28 years with the Seattle Public Library system and 10 years at the Green Lake branch.

To Green Lake area residents, Myers was more than a librarian. A resident of the Green Lake neighborhood since 1977, she has been active in the community, frequently attending meetings of the Green Lake Community Council. In 1997, she participated in forming the Green Lake Chamber of Commerce. At the Green Lake Library, she also created an archive for historical photos and documents regarding the Green Lake neighborhood.

"I think she's made that library a focus point in the community where most people feel very invited and comfortable," said Ref Lindmark of the Green Lake Community Council. "We are very honored to have had her here as long as she's been here, and we'll miss her greatly."

Myer's career as a public librarian was inspired by her desire to improve her community. Her career began in New York in the turbulent '60s, after having grown up in Michigan, attended college in Colorado and moved to Spain for three years to study Spanish. She moved to New York with the intention of finishing a masters in Spanish and began working at the United Nations as a bilingual secretary. Myers boyfriend at the time was attending Columbia University and read about the school's Master of Library Service program. He thought the program would be a good fit for Myers and with his encouragement she decided to enroll.

Like many of her fellow students, Myers entered Columbia with the intent of becoming a university librarian. However, the Columbia Strike of 1968, which began with undergraduate students at Columbia and Barnard Colleges walking out of their classes and spread to graduate students like Myers, changed the course of her career. While the official causes of the strike have faded from memory, Myers felt that the one of the underlying causes was the lack of university involvement with its surrounding community. That event inspired Myers to become a community librarian. After graduating in 1969, Myers took a job as a librarian in New York's Hunt's Point neighborhood, one of the toughest areas in the South Bronx.

"It looked like it had been bombed out," Myers said, describing Hunts Point. There was plenty of drug abuse around and residents were so poor that, according to a local newspaper article at the time, as many as one out of five kids died before reaching adulthood. Myers recalled a particular incident when a young patron proudly rolled up his sleeve to display a knife strapped to his arm. When she told another librarian about the incident the only response she got was "quit blubbering, Myers, and get back to work."

Nevertheless, Myers found the work rewarding, especially her projects with local kids which included organizing a talent show.

"Everybody who worked there made it a real point to work with kids," said Myers. "People really needed their library." But by 1970, Myers was ready to raise a family and she and her then-husband moved west. They were attracted by Seattle's beauty and the fact that it hadn't yet acquired big city problems like those in New York. Back then, Myers said, the job market was favorable to a couple just arrived from the East Coast. "Seattle was very diverse but it didn't quite have people from all over the country. (Being from New York) was your entree to a job," Myers said. Myers got hired to work at the Shoreline Library. Unfortunately, back then the library was much smaller and the leadership was less energetic. After a few months boredom got the better of her and she returned to school, this time to the University of Washington to earn a masters in teaching. While she never used that degree directly, it no doubt came in handy in her career as a children's librarian which began when she first joined the Ballard Library staff in 1973 on a half-time basis as an assistant in the children's section.

Myers thinks she has worked at or run programs at virtually every library in the system. Before coming to Green Lake 10 years ago Myers was manager of the children's section at the Central Library in downtown Seattle, which she described as "wonderful fun."

Myers describes her early impressions of Green Lake by saying "it was like the most special place in the world." When she saw the opportunity to become branch manager of the Green Lake Library in 1991, she took it. Of her many accomplishments at Green Lake, Myers says she is most proud of the formation of the Green Lake Junior Friends of the Seattle Public Library, which she founded in 1995. While the Friends of the Seattle Public Library has several neighborhood branches, this is the only Junior Friends group.

The kids involved with the Junior Friends have helped with a variety of library projects including a personal challenge Myers and her daughter, Robin Kanev, took on in 1997 - to start the first public library in Ecuador. During her time in Saniaguiloo, Ecuador as a Peace Corps volunteer, Kanev was inspired to start a library when she saw how much the children enjoyed been read to. Myers helped her daughter by raising money and getting donations of Spanish language books for the facility. Kanev raised grant money for the project and a building was completed in 1998. Kanev, now 29, has since returned to the States and is a teacher at Concord Elementary in South Park.

Myers hopes to take it easy for a few months after she leaves the Green Lake Library and pursue hobbies such as photography and writing poetry. While the Green Lake Branch is expected to close in late fall for a six-month renovation, Myers said she will be back with the facility reopens.

"I will always be involved with the library," Myers said. "I'll fill out my volunteer form and have it ready." The new branch manager for the Green Lake Library has not yet been named. The branch library is located at 7364 Green Lake Drive N. (