After 17 years as director of the Talbot County Free Library, Robert T. Horvath, who oversaw the renovation of both the St. Michaels branch library and the main library in Easton, will retire on October 31 of this year. A national search is underway to find his successor. Barbara Lane, president of the library’s board of trustees, said of Horvath’s career, “Bob brought the Talbot County Free Library into the twenty-first century. Under his tenure, the library greatly improved both of our library’s buildings and the many services available to our community through those buildings and the library’s online facilities. Thanks in no small part to Bob’s efforts, the library now has approximately 29,000 cardholders and circulates some 281,000 items annually. The people of Talbot County owe the man a real debt. He will be greatly missed.”
Robert T. Horvath
Under Horvath’s supervision, the library has greatly expanded its collections, online services, public programming and community outreach, but his crowning achievement as director must be the renovation of the main library in Easton, completed in May of 2012. The remodeling included the addition of a new children’s wing and garden, a new, state-of-the-art facility for storing and preserving the library’s archive of rare local and state historical documents (the Maryland Room), an increase in the number of public-access computers from 12 to 40, new quiet study rooms, and the installation of a modern heating and cooling system featuring geothermal wells. The renovation added 10,000 square feet to the main library building.
During Horvath’s tenure, the Maryland Room’s collection of historic maps was properly catalogued, the important Dillworth Map of Talbot County restored, and the facility’s capacity for storing and preserving delicate historical materials was brought up to the most rigorous of modern standards. With its collection of over 4,500 rare and important books, genealogical archives, and historical documents, the library’s Maryland Room has become a destination for scholars and researchers from across the country.
Horvath was instrumental in the Talbot County Free Library Foundation’s publication of several works of Talbot County and Maryland history, including James Dawson’s “Irregularities in Abundance: an Anecdotal History of Trappe” and Jacques Baker’s “Gilbert Byron: a Life Worth Examining.” In celebration of both Horvath’s service to the library and the 90th anniversary of the library’s existence, the Foundation plans to publish in October a collection of The Star Democrat’s articles about life in the library written by Bill Peak.
In addition to his work as library director, Horvath has served the people of Talbot County in any number of ways. A past president of both the Rotary Club of Easton and the Talbot County Visual Arts Center (which he helped found), he has also been active in Talbot County’s Cinema Society, Plein Aire Easton, Arts in Easton, and the St. Michaels Arts League. Nationally, he serves as chair of the Board of Trustees of the Norman Rockwell Museum, located in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. An accomplished artist himself, Horvath’s paintings have been exhibited in such prestigious collections as the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum and the USAF Museum. The magnificent 24-foot mural depicting an Eastern Shore landscape which Horvath painted and donated to the library now hangs in the main library’s fiction section. He also painted a mural of an Eastern Shore snow scene for the St. Michaels branch.
When asked about his time in Talbot County, Horvath replied, “I have had a wonderful seventeen years in Talbot County. I was extremely fortunate in having the opportunity to come here in 1998. I have found this area a perfect fit for my family, my interests, and me. I have made many friends here, and the community of Talbot County has been very welcoming to me. This is no doubt one of the most beautiful places to live in this country. My thanks go out to everyone who has helped me make this my home.”
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