Joan Hay is regarded as a workaholic but says she just has a passion for her job. - Junior Dowie/Staff Photographer Keisha Shakespeare-Blackmore, Staff Reporter
National Reading Week began yesterday, April 22, and continues to April 28, under the theme 'Make time for Reading: Be Enlightened'. During the week, the Jamaica Reading Association (JRA), implores everyone to focus on reading and for schools across the island to undertake activities linked with reading. They also ask all life, general and new members, to participate in the week's activities.
Passion for reading
Joan Hay has a passion for reading; For her it is fun, a pleasurable and amusing. She notes that she has an insatiable thirst for knowledge. Therefore, it is only fitting that the bulk of her career was spent at the Jamaica Library Service (JLS) and Jamaica Reading Association (JRA).
The former JLS director of the island's school library network, dedicated herself to JLS after she began there in 1959. She notes that it was by accident that she got into the library profession. Just before graduating from high school, the principal implored her to take up teaching, which she did for a while. Subsequently, she decided to try her luck at JLS. After all, she had nothing to lose because she had plans of going off to study in South Carolina. However, fate intervened and she got the job.
She told Flair that her father, Clifford W. M. Dolphy wanted her to be a doctor but at the time she did not think think much of it. "God has a plan for all of us. But we live in a society that can go against the plans He has for you," she said.
The JLS became a training centre where she had the opportunity to be exposed to all aspects of public librarianship. But, most of her career was spent in the school library network where she devoted herself to parish libraries across the island. She moved up the ranks from junior assistant, acting librarian, principal librarian and director of the school library network prior to retiring in 2004.
In the '60s while working with the Hon. Dr. Joyce Robinson (former director general of JLS), a library was set up at the General Penitentiary Tower Street Adult Correctional Centre in Kingston. That was good experience for her. "The inmates were very gracious. The moment they saw you they came running to get the fan, or a chair etc," she said.
Her Journey at JRA
The JRA is an integral part of the JLS, as both deal with books and knowledge based materials. Therefore, in 1971 Mrs. Hay became a part of the JRA, which is a non-profit organisation that provides voluntary service. Since then, she has been a member of the board among other positions in the organisation. Throughout her 36 years of service she had worked with five directors general. "It seems to me that it was ordained by God that I should be linked with the JRS because every director general who came on, asked me to continue my role. Sometimes I suggested that maybe they should try someone else but they stuck with me."
Recently, the JRA celebrated their 35th anniversary but Mrs. Hay notes that even after 35 years they are still struggling. "We still have not been able to get beneficiaries to donate a piece of land that we can ultimately build a office."
Aside from working with the JLS and JRA, she was a lecturer at Mico Teachers College in the 1970s. She was also the assistant coordinator at the HEART Trust school leavers programme as well as inspector and counsellor of the monitoring division.
People challenges have been the major ones throughout her career. Many leaders would say their biggest challenge is working with people of varying behavioural patterns and the economics situation. "You can never get enough money or resources to achieve the level of excellence you want and that to me is also a challenge," Mrs. Hay adds.
Hard work
Joan Hay has received numerous awards and recognition for her work. - Junior Dowie/Staff Photographer
Through hard work and dedication she has received a number of awards. She is a four-time recipient of long service award from the JLS. She has also received many honorariums books awards and more.
Currently, she still does voluntary work at the JRA. She said she is on a new path, searching and praying that God will choose whatever career path He wants her to follow. "I have a passion for work; people think I am a workaholic but if it is God's will then I will work until he is calls me home."
