Brookwood librarian retires after almost four decades

A self-professed list maker with no shortage of energy, Jackie Crew began to tick off the plans she and her husband, Doug, have made for when she retires next month. “I’m going to read books,” she said. “I’ll probably make a list of classics that I haven’t read yet.” 

The couple has a list for places they’d like to visit, as well. “We bought a new car,” Crew said. “They used to have an advertisement on tv: ‘See the USA in a Chevrolet.’ Well, we’re going to see it in a Highlander.” 

After 37 years of dedicated service, Crew will be retiring from Brookwood School at the end of this year. She began her tenure as librarian at Brookwood in 1981 — when the school was 11 years old — and is the second of only two librarians to have ever worked at the school. 

But don’t think for one minute that Crew plans to slow down. “What I don’t want to do is hang around with a bunch of old people all of the time,” she laughed. “That’s one thing I’m going to miss about school. The children. The young teachers. New ideas.” 

Brookwood’s library has grown and evolved since the school’s founding, largely due to Crew’s vision. In the ‘70s and ‘80s, donated books were stored on shelves surrounding a common area used for all-school meetings and other activities. Every time there was an assembly, she said, “tables had to be taken out of the library and then brought back in.” Magazines were stored in piles, making it much harder to locate specific articles, she remembered. 

“It was just a simpler time,” Crew said. “We just didn’t have a lot.” Case in point: with very little funding to pay for magazine display boxes, she saved her empty detergent boxes for an entire year and cut them into pamphlet containers. “I took them home to my backyard, I lined them up and I sprayed them all with spray paint,” she said. 

Back then, the good old fashioned card catalog was the only method Crew had to keep track of the books. “It used to take us hours to file those cards. Oh, golly, it was so time consuming and so boring,” she said. 

Crew knew the library was quickly outgrowing its space; the technology was simply not up to date. And in 1991, funding was generously donated to construct the Williams-Parker Library. In celebration of the new space, Brookwood School computerized its catalog and circulation system. “That doesn’t seem so fantastic now, but that was 27 years ago, when 

Most libraries were still using card catalogues and cards to check out books,” Crew said. “Moving into this space opened up such possibilities.” 

Looking back over the past 37 years, she said her greatest accomplishment has been helping all of her students learn to read. The best thing in the world, Crew said, is to “find that book that sparks that interest in reading” — the one that inspires children to become lifelong readers. 

Brookwood’s children also learned an important lesson in philanthropy when Crew transformed the school’s Accelerated Reader program into a vehicle to serve others. Inspired by an idea she saw on an episode of Oprah, she began to collect pajamas and books for her students to earn for at-risk children by reading books and passing Accelerated Reader tests. 

“There are so many children out there who don’t have anything,” she said. “We are now not so much about what can we do for ourselves, but what can we do for others.” 

Crew’s contributions to Brookwood are simply immeasurable, said Headmaster Randy Watts. “She has touched the life of almost every student who has ever attended Brookwood.” 

In just a few weeks, Crew will hang up her librarian hat to travel, enjoy family and friends, take classes and hang ten at the beach. “I love to boogie board. I know, it sounds strange,” she said. “Doug says, ‘How old are we? When are we going to stop this?’ I say never,” Crew said. 

“I have a new boogie board, and I’m going to christen that boogie board in about three weeks.”