Our longtime library director Kathy McKula made a graceful exit today after at least 32 years of loyal service to The Courant. It was among the first of many graceful exits that will take place over the next couple days.

It wasn’t as sad as I had pictured it would be — at least not for the big group of folks gathered around the cake in the Hannah B. Watson room. Perhaps some of our collective grief has been burned off in the two weeks we have waited for the final curtain to come down. Kathy was her usual witty self, passing out some parting gifts discovered, apparently, while she was cleaning out parts of her office that hadn’t been seen since the onset of pagination.

Claude delivering his remarks

Anyway, Claude Albert and Rosa Ciccio both observed what we already knew — that Kathy is a consummate professional, a really nice person, and about 650 gigabytes of the company’s 800-gigabyte institutional memory. (Claude is another 50 gigs or so, leaving about 100 divided up among the rest of us.)

Kathy observed that in some ways the experience of leaving is a liberating one, opening her to new possibilities and opportunities. Let’s hope it’s that way for of us who are severing these ties.