To the Editor:

I read your story about Bob Staples, a former director of the Princeton Public Library (although he preferred to be called “Librarian”), with great pleasure. During his tenure, he laid the groundwork for the library as the community’s living room, an objective that Leslie Burger, the current director, brought to heartwarming reality.

Bob was the friendliest person I have known. He would look down on the main floor from the balcony above the checkout desk in the old library building and call, “Yoo-hoo,” to anyone he recognized below.

He knew every shopkeeper along Nassau Street to Harrison, where he walked every weekday to and from his apartment. On the weekends, he returned to his home in Toms River. There he sailed his boat and rode his bicycle to the post office to pick up his mail. When he retired, the Friends of the Library looked for a gift as unusual as he was and gave him a bicycle to replace his old one, much to his delight.

When the Friends celebrated their 25th anniversary with Author! Author!, a free event that attracted more than 500 local people along with 250 local authors, Bob insisted on adding to the festivities by climbing onto the roof above the library’s entrance to tie bunches of balloons over the doors.

We missed him when he left Princeton — we always will.

BARBARA W. FREEDMAN

Valley Road