There was a time when the New Orleans Public Library needed computers to provide public access to technology and the internet.
When Gertiana Williams became the first woman to lead the Library and the first person of color to serve as executive director and city librarian, her mission was to meet that need. Mission accomplished.
Williams started working at the Library in 1990 as an assistant to the director. When that director resigned, she assumed the position on an interim basis. She became the permanent director in 1999 under Mayor Marc Morial’s administration.
“When asked about the years-long search for a new director,” a Library article states, “Library board members said there was not much urgency due to Williams being so competent in the role.”
With a $500,000 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Williams pushed to increase access to technology and the internet. Her diligence “resulted in internet-equipped computer labs at Library locations across the city in the early 2000s,” the Library states. Before her initiative, there were consistently “long lines and waiting times” for the public to use available computers.
“Everyone deserves computer access,” Williams told the Times-Picayune after a new computer lab was dedicated at the East New Orleans Regional Library in 2002. “This is a first step toward realizing that goal.”
In addition to her technology push, Williams opened the African American Resource Center, located on the second floor of the main branch, in 1997. The Center provided educational resources, such as cultural, digital, financial and health literacy. The Library downsized the Center’s collection in 2017 to make room for a teen tech center, but reverted to the original size in 2023.
Williams left the New Orleans Public Library in 2004 to become the director of Forest Hill Library in Texas.
For more tales from New Orleans history, visit the Back in the Day archives.
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