ITHACA, N.Y. — Tompkins County Legislator Susan Currie, who represents District 3 in the city of Ithaca, will resign effective Monday, March 31 to take on the role of interim director of the Tompkins County Public Library once again, beginning April 1. “Susan has been a positive force on the Tompkins County Legislature,” County Legislature […]
ITHACA, N.Y. — Tompkins County Legislator Susan Currie, who represents District 3 in the city of Ithaca, will resign effective Monday, March 31 to take on the role of interim director of the Tompkins County Public Library once again, beginning April 1.
“Susan has been a positive force on the Tompkins County Legislature,” County Legislature Chair Dan Klein said in a county announcement. “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.
Currie was elected to the Tompkins County Legislature in January 2023 and serves as the vice chair of the Government Operations Committee, which oversaw the development of the county’s first strategic operations plan. She is also one of three county-appointed legislators to serve on the Tompkins Consolidated Area Transit Board.
Currie has lived in Ithaca since 1979. She is a librarian with a master’s degree in library science from the University of Buffalo, and was an academic librarian in senior leadership positions for close to 30 years, including Cornell University and SUNY Binghamton University Libraries, according to her bio on the Tompkins County website. In 2009, Currie was chosen to be director of the Tompkins County Public Library. During that time, she closed a $750,000 deficit and expanded services, per the announcement. She retired as the Finger Lakes Library director of the year in 2017 after a successful campaign for the establishment of a Makerspace, Digital Lab, a Local History Room, Teen Services area, and a complete relocation of the collection and staff. In 2021, Currie returned to Tompkins County Public Library as interim director, guiding the library in restoring hours and services as the county reopened after COVID and as the search for a new director began. Now, she has returned to the library again.
