Accepts out-of-state job after three-year tenure

PASSAIC -- The city's library director, Alan Bobowski, has resigned.

"I found a better job," Bobowski, 57, said Thursday. The Pennsylvania resident will be working as library director in another state that he declined to name.

Bobowski started the Passaic job three years ago and was at the helm last year when a public battle erupted to save the historic Reid Memorial Library.

The nine-member library board accepted Bobowski's resignation Tuesday night during a board meeting, said Mark Auerbach, library board president. The board appointed Kathleen Mollica as interim director. A former city librarian, she was acting library director before Bobowski's arrival in February 2005. Mollica is retired and works part time at the Hawthorne Public Library.

Bobowski's last day will be April 16, but he will be paid until May 23, reflecting vacation days, Auerbach said.

In recent meetings there was tension between Bobowski and Auerbach, who was re-appointed to the board by the mayor in December after several years off it.

"At this point in time, I think Mr. Bobowski's decision is in the best interest of the Passaic Public Library and Alan Bobowski," Auerbach said Thursday, declining further comment.

Last year, the city sparked public outcry when it announced plans to close the historic Reid Memorial Library, saying it didn't have funds to keep it open.

The 104-year-old library is secure now, Bobowski said.

"That's pretty much ancient history," he said. "The mayor has agreed to raise the funds and the trustees are committed to keeping the Reid branch open." The city gave $50,000 to help fund Reid in January, he said.

As library director Bobowski oversaw the Passaic Public Library system's day-to-day operations and 100,000 books, which are contained in two branches. The Michigan native's base salary is $77,500 a year. He holds a master's degree in library science and has worked in public libraries in Washington, D.C., Maryland and Michigan. He lives in Pennsylvania and is married with two children.

According to Jean Ellis, the head librarian, Bobowski's legacy includes setting up a lab where adults learn to use computers, a teen meet-up group, and the buying of more foreign-language material. Fifteen percent of the library system's $1.1 million budget is earmarked for foreign-language books, DVDs and periodicals, Bobowski said.

The public's biggest misconception about libraries is that with the advent of the Internet, libraries are no longer needed, Bobowski said.

"Every community needs a place where it can access the Internet, books, periodicals, free of charge," Bobowski said. At the main Julius Forstmann Library on Gregory Avenue and the Reid, on Third Street, there are 30 computers with free Internet access, Bobowski said.

As for the director's own literary taste, he likes classics, science fiction and third-world literature. His favorite book is a classic from India, "Mahabharata."

"It's sort of like reading the Bible, Grimm's Fairy Tales and the Greek philosophers all in one book," he said.

Five years ago, he started a survey of world literature, reading titles recommended by "The New Lifetime Reading Plan," a guide to world literature by Clifton Fadiman and John S. Major that has been in print for decades.

He also likes books on CD.

Bobowski said he planned to listen to CD 26 of "War and Peace," a 19th-century classic more than 1,000 pages long by Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy, on his Thursday night car commute home to Pennsylvania.

"It's a really good way to get through a long or difficult book, like "Don Quixote" or "Moby-Dick," he said. "Books I could never make myself finish reading."