Bruton Memorial Library was a big part of Tonda Morris’s life growing up. It was more than just a refuge from the Florida sun that happened to be a close walk from her grandmother’s house: it was where she’d go to escape into the world of books, research for high school projects and, yes, take advantage of a pretty good air conditioning system in the summer.
It wasn’t a place Morris initially thought she’d end up in her career as a librarian. But once she found out Bruton is a city-run library, she immediately wanted to move back from Georgia and get back to her roots.
“I think I assumed it was part of a big system or something,” Morris said. “I never thought about it until I was here visiting my cousin… and I started thinking, ‘I wonder if that’s a city library?’ I looked it up online and it was. I called my cousin and said, ‘Hey, if the library director ever leaves, let me know.’ Several months later, she said, ‘Guess what?’”
Morris has been Bruton’s Director of Library Services for more than four years now and is leading the charge to help Plant City’s library keep moving forward while never losing sight of its customers. Though Bruton is one of 29 members in the Hillsborough County Public Library Cooperative, a partnership that allows the county’s libraries to share resources and materials, being directly involved with the City of Plant City gives Bruton the ability to get more involved with the community than a library run by a larger entity like a state. Morris previously worked in a city-run library in the Atlanta area for 10 years and said, in her experience, the city-run libraries have a strong focus on community involvement.
Plant City has seen plenty of that at Bruton over the years, whether it’s been small events, like last year’s family mini golf night that turned the entire library into a 12-hole course, or bigger fundraisers like the long-running Mystery Dinner Theater that bring people together to support a cause and have a blast.
One of Morris’s goals is to make sure residents know Bruton isn’t just an old school, silent library full of dusty old books and a complex reference system — it’s a place with both the latest technology and a wealth of offerings for people of all ages to learn from and enjoy. It can be a “third space” for people, considering the home as the first space and the office as the second. Bruton is a place you can go to get work or research done, quickly pull up anything you need digitally, access free wi-fi and computers and do what you need to do in a productive environment.
“Our goal here is to make sure we cover all the current basics for library services that keep us current in terms of the whole country,” Morris said. “The library world changes as fast as technology does. Libraries, for many years, used to just be the same old thing with new books. Kind of calm, kind of quiet. It’s not that way anymore at all. We just want to meet our customers’ needs.”
Morris said that in her time at Bruton, a continued push to embrace the latest tech has changed customers’ wants and needs. There’s been a greater demand for e-books, for example, and she said it’s now at a point where 51 percent of Hillsborough County’s circulation is digital. But the advent of e-books and the Kindle doesn’t mean the library’s been emptied by people who get everything at home: roughly 14,000 visitors come through Bruton’s doors each month and, no matter what each individual’s needs are, Morris helps make sure Bruton can meet them.
The fact that she gets to work at her hometown library has not been lost on Morris. She hopes Bruton can still be for young people in 2019 what it was for her when she was growing up, and that it can always meet the needs of adults, too.
“I used to go to this library as a child,” she said, “so it’s very important to me.”
Get to know Tonda
What’s the best advice you’ve gotten?
My dad, he always told me ‘If you fall down or get knocked down, you pick yourself back up and keep on moving.’ You can apply that to many situaitons.
What’s your favorite book?
I’ve always got a new favorite. My current favorite is a nonfiction book called Make Your Bed, by William H. McRaven. We all need to be reminded that what we think is impossible is actually possible many times. It’s about our determination.
Who is a woman that’s inspired you?
My mother always told me that I could do anything I wanted to. I was talented enough that I could accomplish anything I wanted to, and she told me that from an early age. So I always believed it.
What do you hope to see change in Plant City in the next 10 years?
I just can’t wait to see downtown development continue. We have some of the most beautiful buildings. I think we have all this wonderful potential and I can’t wait to see it all blossom.
Which three words would you use to describe yourself?
Determined, optimistic and joyful.
What’s the hardest life lesson you’ve learned?
Going back to my dad’s advice, anytime anything’s ever gone wrong or been difficult, I just kept moving forward. Nothing really keeps me down for long. To me it’s, ‘OK, now there’s another opportunity. If that door shuts, what are the opportunities on this side of the door?’