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Neighbors: Profiles of our community

Newly married and newly retired, Seabury Hall’s longtime librarian Linda Higgins (nee, Lindsay) leaves a lasting legacy that will be remembered by generations of students.

Seabury Hall won’t be quite the same without Linda Higgins.

After 38 years at the helm of the school’s library, Higgins (nee, Lindsay) retired in January. For nearly four decades, she was the heart and soul of the library — and an inspiration to thousands of students. Perhaps that’s why the recently married Higgins has encountered a bit of good-natured resistance to her new surname.

“Quite a few students have said: ‘I’ll never get used to it — I’ll always call you Ms. Lindsay,” she said. “I’m fine with that.”

To say the beloved school librarian was ideally suited for the role she took on 38 years ago would be an understatement.

As a child, Higgins, who was born and raised in the Hamakuapoko plantation camp, became keenly aware of the magic that lies between the pages of a good book. She made frequent trips to the old Paia library, where the librarian, Miyoko Onaga, would have a new book set aside for her.

“There was always something waiting for me when I walked through the door,” Higgins recalled. “I thought she was magical.”

After graduating from St. Anthony Girls’ School in 1965, Higgins attended Maunaolu College in Paia, where she landed a part-time gig as a student library aide (and unraveled the intricacies of the Dewey Decimal System). In 1967, she headed to Western New Mexico University to pursue a degree in English education, and two years later, began teaching high school English in a small town in New Mexico.

After several years on the Mainland, Higgins decided it was time to move back to Maui. In 1978, she joined the Seabury Hall staff as the headmaster’s secretary, and it wasn’t long before she became a treasured member of the campus community.

When she learned the school needed a new librarian in the summer of 1980, Higgins seized the opportunity — and quickly fell in love with her new job. So much, in fact, that she began taking classes at the University of Hawaii at Manoa over her summer breaks, eventually earning a master’s degree in library and information science.

Higgins will be the first to tell you that academic librarians do far more than curate, catalog and recommend books; they also teach information literacy, provide educational support to teachers, and keep pace with rapidly evolving technologies. To her obvious delight, Higgins (who purchased the library’s first computer — an Apple IIe — in 1984) says she’s seen libraries undergo a remarkable transformation — from date stamps and card catalogs to Google Hangouts and interactive apps.

During her tenure, Higgins, among other things, spearheaded an annual storytelling hour for alumni and their children; initiated a “books-on-demand” service for students; and collaborated with faculty members to launch a number of interdisciplinary programs designed to promote critical thinking, the exchange of ideas and reading for pleasure.

Additionally, in her multifaceted role, Higgins, a Google Certified innovator and trainer, helped establish Seabury Hall as a Google Apps for Education school and started Seabury Hall’s LibGuides (a content management and resource sharing system designed specifically for libraries) in 2012. She was also a member of the school’s tech staff (as its educational technology specialist), sat on the curriculum and admissions committees, and served as the school’s graduation coordinator.

But most importantly, she cultivated a love of reading in her students — even those who were initially reluctant to step foot (much less hang out) in a library.

“I’ve been told, ‘I love libraries now because of you,’ ” she said. “That’s what I call ‘golden moment’ teaching — making a difference without even knowing it.”

And when it comes to “golden moments,” Higgins has racked up her fair share over the years, evidenced by the many students who stay in touch long after they graduate.

“Alumni love to come back to Seabury and drop into the library,” she said. “The visits constitute some of my fondest memories.”

The decision to wind down her career wasn’t an easy one, but Higgins says it was time to pass the torch; she is leaving the library in the capable hands of her assistant and former student, Malia Quiocho. And Higgins isn’t saying “goodbye” — it’s more like “see you around.”

Apart from assisting with this year’s graduation activities, she plans to help out in the library and will maintain mauilibrarian2.com, the blog she started in 2010.

“Retirement isn’t going cold turkey,” she laughed.

Higgins says she is infinitely proud of all she’s accomplished since she first arrived at Seabury Hall.

“I always believed in what I was doing, because I was doing it for the students,” she said. “Of all the things I will miss, I’ll miss them the most.”

* Sarah Ruppenthal is a Maui-based writer. Do you have an interesting neighbor? Tell us about them at missruppenthal@gmail.com. Neighbors and “The State of Aloha,” written by Ben Lowenthal, alternate Fridays.

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