LOUISE FRANCES HLAVAC WOODS (1907-1983)

Louise F. Hlavac was born in New York and earned a BA from Hunter College in 1929.  That same year, she entered Columbia’s School of Library Service as a part-time student and received her BS in 1931.

NYPL’s Webster Branch was central to Hlavac’s career.  Webster was known informally as the “Bohemian” branch and served the Czech community in its Upper East Side neighborhood as well as those scattered around the city.  It was not unusual that NYPL placed Hlavac at Webster since she was of Czech ancestry--both of her parents were born in Bohemia and came to the US in the 1880s.   Hlavac started her work at NYPL as a substitute at Webster while she was still a student at Hunter.  Upon her graduation from college she received a regular appointment at Webster and worked there for two years while attending library school.  She returned to Webster in 1939 as Acting Branch Librarian and became Webster’s Branch Librarian in 1941. 

Louise Hlavac married George Alan Woods (1903-????) in 1936/37.  He worked as a civil engineer.

Louise Woods resigned from NYPL in 1943 and worked as a Library Assistant at the Bellevue School of Nursing, 1946-1947.  Woods returned to NYPL (probably on a part-time basis) in 1947 and worked at several sub-branches until she retired in 1955.