Susan Currie resigns from county legislature, steps into role of interim library director

Susan Currie, who represents District 3 in the City of Ithaca, has announced her resignation, effective March 31, 2025. She has accepted the position of Interim Director of the Tompkins County Public Library starting on April 1.

Currie was elected to the Tompkins County Legislature in January 2023 and is active on several committees. She is the vice chair of the Government Operations Committee, which oversaw the development of the county’s first strategic operations plan, and the Downtown Facilities Special Committee. Currie is a member of the Health and Human Services Committee and Facilities and Infrastructure Committee, which plans the development of a Center of Government. She serves as a liaison to the Human Rights Commission and the Community Recovery Fund Advisory Committee that oversaw the distribution of pandemic relief funds to local organizations. She is also one of three county-appointed legislators to serve on the Tompkins Consolidated Area Transit (TCAT) Board.

Currie stated in her resignation, “I am profoundly grateful for having had the honor and privilege of serving with all of you on the County Legislature. I am equally honored to have represented District 3. I have learned a tremendous amount about our community and local government from each of you. I have witnessed what true dedication and commitment should look like. Your tireless work for all in our county will be an inspiration for me.”

“Susan has been a positive force on the Tompkins County Legislature,” commented Dan Klein, Chair of the Legislature. “She has always stepped forward to volunteer for whatever work needed doing. She has been an excellent representative for her district. The library is lucky to have gotten her.”

A special election will be held to fill Currie’s seat for the remainder of the year. The Tompkins County Legislature will set the date for the special election at its April 1 meeting.

The Tompkins County Public Library Board of Trustees’ appointment of Currie to act as the Library’s Interim Director was finalized in executive session at the Board of Trustees meeting at TCPL on Tuesday, March 25.

Currie previously led TCPL as its director from 2009 until 2017 and served again as an interim director in 2021. During her tenure, she closed a $750,000 operating deficit and led successful campaigns for the establishment of the Makerspace, Digital Lab, Local History Room and the Teen Services area. She was named Finger Lakes Library Director of the year in 2017. Upon her hiring for the Director’s role in 2009, Currie told the Ithaca Times it was her “dream job.”

“I am honored to return as Interim Director of TCPL, a library dedicated to serving the county and the Finger Lakes Library System,” Currie said. “Together we will continue to offer a place where people from all walks and stages of life can come to learn, share and connect.

“Our library will continue to serve as a place where the joy of discovery is alive, a place to recharge, and to feel a sense of community. I look forward to working with the staff, and the community to ensure our services meet the needs of all.”

As interim director in 2021, Currie helped guide the Library as it restored hours and services that had been reduced during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Currie brings to the role 40 years of experience as a senior librarian and administrator. She has a master’s degree in library science from the University of Buffalo and held leadership positions at both Cornell University and SUNY Binghampton University libraries. Currie has lived in Ithaca since 1979.

Since her retirement from TCPL, Currie became a published and award-winning author, with her book available in the Library she once led and will lead again. In 2022 she released “The Preventorium,” a memoir detailing the 15 months she spent as a child in the Mississippi State Preventorium, a medical institution for sickly, anemic or underweight children. Memoir Magazine named “The Preventorium” the Best Memoir on Health/Adverse Childhood Experiences in 2023. Currie spoke about the book, her time in the Preventorium, and the isolating world it created for her and thousands of other children during a November 2022 Book Talk at TCPL.

Currie is expected to serve as Interim Director through the end of September. The search process to identify a permanent Director will begin in the coming months. More information on that will be released as it becomes available.