Abby Baker
Five days a week for the past 10 years, Cailey Klasson walked through the doors of the Gulfport Public Library and said hello to her regulars, who range from seniors to babbling toddlers. Up until now that is.
Friday, April 1, Klasson stepped down from her role as youth services librarian.
Since accepting the job in 2012, Klasson’s held the same position at the library. In that decade, she’s gone from a 25-year-old searching for adventure to a mother of two young girls.
She’s worked at the library through both pregnancies, the 2015 renovation and, recently, a worldwide pandemic.
“I’ve met the best of Gulfport just from the people that have come into the library,” Klasson said.
Friday, April 1 was Klasson’s last day. The New England native is moving her family to Connecticut to be closer to her parents, and so her daughters can be closer to their grandparents.
Growing up, she didn’t spend a lot of time with her grandparents, and it’s important for her children to have that interpersonal community.
Also, she adds, her family is being priced out. As home prices in Gulfport rise, Klasson fears her family of four will not be able to afford upsizing as they grow.
Still, it wasn’t an easy choice.
“I keep telling people we’re moving to be closer to my family,” Klasson said, choking up. “But I feel like I’m leaving my family here.”
Abby Baker
Welcoming Cailey
Before Gulfport was on her radar, Klasson graduated from Simmons University in Boston. While living in Massachusetts, Klasson worked as a library assistant at an all-girls school.
She was always a woman with a love of literature and people, and upon receiving a graduate degree, she sought out the community reach and creativity that comes with working in a library.
“Libraries are these great community resources doing radical things and I just loved it,” Klasson said. “The rest is history.”
With no job offers in sight, Klasson and her boyfriend (Tony Fox) moved to St. Petersburg for a shot at warm weather. It was a move that she describes being motivated by “young and dumb” reasons. Really, she said, she wanted to get out of the metro-Boston area.
For months, she applied to various jobs and stressed about the future.
Until her 2012 interview with Gulfport Public Library Director Dave Mather, who had only began his position a few months before Klasson walked in the doors.
“Dave… I feel like he took a chance on me,” Klasson said. “I didn’t have years and years of experience, but getting this job was an amazing opportunity for me. I finally got to do what I went to grad school for.”
Mather, a stone-faced staple around the library and the 2016 honoree of Florida’s Librarian of the Year (awarded by the Florida Library Association), isn’t one to get emotional.
But he will miss Klasson.
“She’s been a part of the library for 10 years; she’s actually really become a part of the community,” Mather told The Gabber. “We’ve been telling people and they are very disappointed, especially the little kids.”
A Decade of Cailey
Before Klasson’s arrival, there was a gap where the library had no youth librarian. The year she jumped on board was the year that the long-running Storytime in the Park program began. Then, the year following, she started the Kid’s Science Club.
Some of the toddlers that came to those first years of storytime, she still sees, only they’re nearing adolescence.
“It’s been amazing getting to see kids grow up from babies and toddlers to now, being in middle school,” Klasson said. “This place is so special to me.”
She’s also partly responsible for the more recent outdoor spaces at the library, such as The Reading Garden and the Pocket Prairie mini habitat that Klasson put together with the City of Gulfport’s horticulturist, Toffer Ross.
Klasson met Phyllis Plotnick through the library’s Circle of Friends and the Sonia Plotnick Health Fund. Over the years, the women have remained intermingled in joint causes.
“She’s [Klasson] extremely knowledgeable and creative, kind to a fault, she’s compassionate … She’s loved by children and adults,” Plotnick said. “And she’s going to be very hard to replace.”
Prior to leaving Florida, Klasson accepted a position at the Windsor Public Library in Connecticut. She hopes to bring some of her light up north, and hopes the same for whoever will fill her role.
The library is actively looking for Klasson’s replacement, says Mather.
But they’ll have big shoes to fill.
“I hope the next person can bring an open heart and an open mind,” Klasson said. “I hope they bring the silly things, and have a lot of fun with it.”
