She Learned English at the Houston Public Library. Now She Runs It.

Sandy Gaw learned English as a kindergartner at the Houston Public Library. Forty years later, Mayor Whitmire appointed her to run it — a system with more than 330,000 active cardholders, 2 million visits last year, and 8 million physical and digital checkouts.Sandy is the fourth of ten children in a first-generation American family. Chinese was the first language at home; her father took all ten kids to the public library so they could check out books and learn English together. That memory is the spine of this conversation. Sandy spent nearly 30 years inside HISD as a bilingual teacher, ESL teacher, and principal before taking the Director job in 2024, and she walks Owen through what's actually inside a modern Houston library branch — a portable planetarium the community engagement team takes on the road, three research centers (Houston history, African American history, and family genealogy), and TechLink: free makerspaces with podcast studios, 3D printers, music video gear, and Cricut machines available to any cardholder. A fifth TechLink opens later this fall with the most up-to-date equipment in the system.Then there's the Library of Things. Sandy explains that a Houston library card now gets you bakeware and musical instruments alongside books, which produces the episode's biggest laugh when Owen asks whether he can bake her a cake. Underneath the surprises is a stakes-level argument: summer learning loss is real, kids' reading skills can slide measurably over a two-to-three-month break, and the 2025 Summer Reading Program — Unearth the Story, running June 1 through July 31 — exists to keep that from happening. FIFA World Cup programming is running at every branch all summer. Sign up at houstonlibrary.org.Thanks for listening!New episodes from inside Houston City Hall, featuring candid conversations about the issues, decisions, and leadership shaping the future of Houston.Connect with Mayor John Whitmire and the Mayor’s Office:Instagram: @houstonmayorX: @HouMayorWebsite: https://www.houstontx.gov/mayor/Follow the show for more conversations from inside the Mayor’s Office.