Charlotte library official wrote the book on helping neighbors

MECKLENBURG COUNTY

Everett Blackmon, access service manager at the University City Branch Library, shows off the Order of the Hornet proclamation and medallion at the Oct. 21, 2026, Mecklenburg county commissioners meeting. Blackmon has been an employee of Charlotte Mecklenburg Library for 45 years.

The final chapter on Everett Blackmon’s service to Mecklenburg  County hasn’t been written.

Blackmon, the access service manager at the University City Branch Library, has been a full-time Charlotte Mecklenburg Library employee for 45 years. He was  inducted last month into the Mecklenburg County Order of the Hornet, the highest honor bestowed by county commissioners for people who have displayed a high level of service to  residents. 

As a freshman at West Charlotte High School, Blackmon found the North Branch Library a quiet place to study and reflect. Library employee Vanessa Ramseur asked if he would be interested in  cataloging books. 

“I was hanging out in the library as a boy, 14 years old, and she asked me if I wanted to work there,” Blackmon, 64, recalled. “I was just doing my homework, hanging out. She asked me if I was wanted to work there because the guy that was doing the cataloging as we were bringing our systems online … was leaving. I had some typing skills, and that’s what they needed: someone to just measure the books, enter the information in the new computer system.”

As a teen, Blackmon worked summers with the library system through a summer youth job program, then as a student at Johnson C. Smith University before landing full-time work. He went on to branches around the county: Sharon Road, West Boulevard Library, and the main branch in Center City among them. 

He earned a promotion to circulation services manager and built relationships with customers and communities. Among the most appealing aspects has been learning history through collaborations like one he formed with the late Theresea Elder, founder of the Selma Burke Black Heritage Committee Blackmon chaired for 10 years. There were also work-related connections with archivists at the Main Branch’s Carolina Room. 

“It just it just grew over years,” Blackmon said. “You meet people and you connect, and then you start figuring out what you have in common, which is a love of Charlotte-Mecklenburg, the community, and community service. To be honest with you, many times it didn't even feel like work. It felt like just something naturally that I would do.”

Libraries have changed over the years. Today they’re digital hubs in addition to repositories for books. They’re also more integrated into communities – whether it’s through literacy programs or meeting places.

“Number one, we have more collaborative spaces,” Blackmon said. “That’s been intentional. We’ve also adapted in the sense of the way we deliver our products. Say, for instance, with books. Now we have online books for free. Yes, you can go and buy a service, but why when your taxpayers are already paying for it?

“Before, we got most of the information from books. … Even though you have Google and things like that, at the library the resources are more expertly chosen. You can trust it because that’s the big thing about the public library, particularly the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library, is the trust we’ve built in the community.”

After 45 years, Blackmon gets asked often about retirement. He isn’t thinking about it, though.

“Many people ask me that from time to time,” he said. “My mom has asked me a number of times, when I was retired, which actually she would ask me when I would rest, and I told her I rest when I pass over, when it’s time for me to go on to the other side. But in all sincerity, I love what I do.”

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