New Mexico State Library

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Pat Hodapp, Director of Santa Fe Public Libraries Retires

Patricia Hodapp, long-time [director of libraries] for the City of Santa Fe, retired January 31st. She was a strong proponent of youth and community programs for the city. After joining the staff in 2004, Pat worked with the library board and a host of supporters to develop and fund the Southside Library.

In 2006, she secured funding for the “Books and Babies” program, which serves babies 6-18 months old providing “books, music, and a warm, caring place to learn to love reading.” The program is still going strong today and has expanded to include a Spanish Books and Babies.

The New Mexico Book Coop awarded Pat its 2015 Literary Award in special recognition of her ongoing support for authors and books. Pat is an author herself, publishing in 2016 “The Complete Santa Fe Bucket List: 100 things to do in Santa Fe before you die.”

Pat came to Santa Fe from the Denver Public Library, where she served as Director of Marketing for over 12 years, helping to shepherd the library through a system expansion as well as the building of a new main library downtown.

In 2018, Santa Fe’s  La Farge branch added hours, and now all three branches are open Sundays. At the same time, Pat worked with the library board and the Friends of the Library to undertake a study of library services, buildings, and needs to guide library planning into the future. That study is underway.

The numbers show that Santa Fe citizens use their library, but Pat measured the library’s success in “each child loving to come to the library and every patron who finds what they need.” She said she looks forward to continuing to serve the library in a different capacity as well as continuing her writing.

“Great cities,” Pat said, “deserve great libraries.”

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