Martha Rial, Post-GazetteBarbara Mistick, the new director and first woman to lead the Carnegie Library, at the grand opening of the Carnegie Library Squirrel Hill branch yesterday.

Barbara K. Mistick, founder of a successful transportation business and a distinguished service professor at Carnegie Mellon University, will become the first woman to lead the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh.

Mistick, who takes over as director on June 1, attended yesterday's opening of the newly renovated Squirrel Hill branch, where her appointment was announced. The library's trustees approved Mistick's hiring Monday afternoon. The Shadyside resident succeeds Herb Elish, who retired in March after more than six years on the job.

Her major challenge, Mistick said, will be maintaining the momentum of the ambitious agenda that Elish oversaw. During his tenure, the library's main Oakland location was renovated along with Carnegie libraries in Homewood, Brookline and Squirrel Hill. A new Downtown business library opened on Smithfield Street earlier this year.

"The circulation is up in those libraries. People who are customers and consumers in those libraries have really come back in great number and they've come back with a voracious appetite for more books and more reading," Mistick said.

Librarians, she added, play a key role.

"There are many places to get information today. But there are not that many places that will give you expertise and information. This is what librarians do so amazingly well," Mistick said.

The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, in addition to its Oakland location, operates 18 libraries, all within the city limits. Five locations have been renovated but 13 libraries are still in need of updates.

"In order to continue renovating branches, it takes significant capital commitments. Part of figuring out how to make that happen is having the community understand the library in a more intimate way," Mistick said.

Steel tycoon Andrew Carnegie used his vast fortune to build the city's libraries.

"There's a common misperception that Andrew Carnegie funded the libraries in perpetuity. And he didn't," Mistick said.

Carnegie believed that if he funded the building of libraries that the public would donate money to support them, she added.

"We haven't quite gotten that message out to the community -- that the libraries are a resource that they need to care for," Mistick said.

Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Frank J. Lucchino, a library trustee and member of the search committee that selected Mistick, said the city of Pittsburgh used to pay to maintain the libraries but no more.

"In the past, no director ever had to raise 5 cents for library renovation or building. You just went to the City Council and the mayor and if they wanted to do it, they did it and paid for it."

Now, Lucchino added, "We've got to go and raise $62 million," a pot of money that will cover operating costs, renovations and an endowment.

"Barbara will raise the public, private and political awareness of the importance and the funding of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh to the future of the city, the county and the region," said Leonard Perfido, a vice chair of the trustees.

Mistick holds a bachelor's degree in business administration from Carlow College, a master's in business administration from the University of Pittsburgh and a doctorate in management from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

In the mid-1970s, Mistick founded Mobility Inc., a company that transported students who had disabilities. She sold the company to Laidlaw,Inc. in the mid-1980s.

In 1995, Mistick took a leadership role at Seton Hill University, where she ran the school's National Education Center for Women in Business.

JoAnne Boyle, president of Seton Hill University, said Mistick successfully integrated the center into the school's curriculum and engaged faculty in teaching entrepreneurship.

Mistick, Boyle added, also raised the school's profile by starting an annual conference on entrepreneurship and establishing an interactive Web site that offered questions to answers about creating a business plan.

"She is someone who thinks quickly and creatively, someone who is persistent, a good problem solver. She's pretty tireless. She had an extraordinary number of initiatives on her timetable every day. She was able to look at every single one of them and deliver on every one of them. We were very sorry to lose her," Boyle said.

Before taking the job of library director, Mistick served as director of the Girls' Math & Science Initiative, a public and private collaboration between Fred Rogers' Family Communications Inc. and Carnegie Mellon University. Mistick is a distinguished service professor of entrepreneurship and public policy in CMU's H.J. Heinz School of Public Policy and Management.

Mistick said as her experience as an entrepreneur will help in her new position.

"You have to figure out exactly what the community needs are today. They have changed over time. I think that's something that Andy Carnegie embraced."

First Published: April 20, 2005, 4:00 a.m.