Librarian and her stories go to Africa

Kihei librarian Kathleen Ageton spent this past summer the way she always does — introducing kids to a love of stories.

Except this time she traded in the hot, sunny environs of South Maui for the hot, sunny settings of Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Ageton and her son John, a junior at Maui High School, traveled to Africa for three weeks in July and August to volunteer with Elizabeth’s Library International, a nonprofit that works to establish libraries in underserved areas.

“I believe that every child has a book that will turn them on to reading,” Ageton said. “And if you find that book for them and it clicks, it’s a wonderful thing to know that you’ve had a positive impact in a child’s life, and there’s nothing like it. And that’s why I went to Africa, too.”

Ageton is a single mother and said that with her son approaching college and adulthood, she was thinking about “what am I going to do with myself so that my focus isn’t on me, me, me?”

A few years ago, she got a call from a friend asking if she’d like to be part of Elizabeth’s Library. The nonprofit is named after Elizabeth Tolhurst, a California woman who died of an inoperable brain tumor in 2011 at age 25. Tolhurst was passionate about her faith and reading, according to the nonprofit’s website. In 2012 after her death, Hope Home Mission, a Malawi-based ministry that Tolhurst supported, opened a library named after her in Lilongwe.

In 2013, Elizabeth’s Library International was born, and within six months, it founded a small library in the West African nation of Cote d’Ivoire.

When Ageton joined the nonprofit’s board of directors about two years ago, she thought she “would just be a figurehead.”

“But it combines the things I’m very passionate about, which is my faith, of course literacy and books, and children,” said Ageton, who attends Waipuna Chapel in Kula. “And to get all that wrapped into one feels like the right thing for me.”

In July, she and her son embarked on a trip with four others to southeastern Africa. They traveled to Susu Village in Zambia and to Domboshava in neighboring Zimbabwe. There, Ageton helped with cataloging, advising the staff and discussing how to develop programs.

The Susu library was composed of one room with a wall of books that Ageton estimated would take up about a quarter of the children’s section at the Kihei library, which is one of the largest in the Maui County system and has about 70,000 books. Ageton estimated that the Susu library had about 3,000 to 4,000 books, which it happily shared.

“They take those books on a bicycle . . . to nine outlying schools to share those books,” Ageton said. “And it was that library, Susu library, that came up with the idea of sharing the bounty with these other schools because they simply don’t have access to books.”

Ageton said that the Susu library “hasn’t lost a book,” and despite the hot climate and lack of air conditioning that could wear a book down, the community has taken great care of the collection.

“Books are precious, and if you sit down to read to a child, pretty soon you’ll have a group of kids gathered at your knees, wanting to hear a story,” Ageton said.

With school fees, education isn’t accessible to everyone, but the books are free, Ageton said. Elizabeth’s Library gets books through donations, some in the local language, but most in English, which is taught in the schools.

While in Zimbabwe, Ageton said the group met with an architect to talk about building a more permanent home for the books. Elizabeth’s Library aims to make the libraries self-sustaining, in areas that have access to water and land where the community can plant crops to feed themselves and support the library “so there’s a sense of ownership.” Ageton said she would love to return and help build the new library, but “we’ll see what happens.”

Life as a librarian was not something Ageton originally imagined, but it’s turned out to be the perfect fit.

Ageton was born in Singapore, where her Canadian parents were missionaries. She lived there for a grand total of two weeks before the family moved to Michigan, then back to Canada and eventually Maui, where a 6-year-old Ageton started 1st grade at Haiku Elementary School.

She attended Maui High School, graduating in 1980, and went on to attend the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in English, a professional diploma in elementary education and a master’s in library and information science.

Ageton lived on Maui until 1989, when she moved to California. She worked as a youth services librarian at the Monterey Public Library for 10 years before returning to Hawaii in December 1999.

In 2001, she started working as a youth services librarian at the Kihei Public Library, and in 2007 she was named the Hawaii Public Librarian of the Year, which isn’t a surprise to those who know her, like Kihei resident Ivana Gadient.

She’s been taking her daughters, Makena, Raven and Jewel, to the library since they were kids. When they wanted a teen book club, Ageton helped them start one. It ran for eight years and was “really phenomenal,” Gadient said. When Makena, the oldest, got a job at the Kihei library in high school, Ageton would give her a ride. And when Jewel, the youngest, who has cerebral palsy and is visually impaired, needed audio books, Ageton found just the right ones. Jewel is now 18; her sisters are in their 20s and both pursuing special education careers.

“Kathleen has become a family friend, and she has been instrumental in my daughters all loving books and using libraries here and on the Mainland,” Gadient said. “It’s just been a lifelong benefit investment.”

Ageton said that “when you’re a teenager, nobody thinks they want to be a librarian.”

But, she added, “it’s really an exciting career. You’d be surprised. I wanted a really easy job at first, and it’s so funny — it’s not easy at all. It’s very challenging. Every day is different. But it’s so wonderful to know that you have an impact in a child’s life.”

* Colleen Uechi can be reached at cuechi@mauinews.com.