The Richland County Public Library at the corner of Hampton and Assembly was named the National Library of the Year in 2001. Ground was broken for the 242,000- square- foot building in 1991, and the grand opening was 1993. The county's main library building cost about $48 per square foot in 1993 dollars, a relative bargain.

Besides the main building, another eight library branches were built at the same time. Managing all this was David Warren, executive director for the RCPL. Warren retires this April 3.

Warren was born in Martin, Tennessee, home of the University of Tennessee's second largest campus. His father managed a dairy company while his mother managed the house. Warren's older brother is an entomologist for the State of Tennessee.

A double major in college, both English and history, Warren started in Martin and transferred to the flagship campus in Knoxville. Planning on law school, Warren worked in the state library during his undergraduate summers.

His state library experience led him to graduate school in library science at the University of Illinois, widely recog- nized as America's top library school. In 1969, Warren earned his master's in library science after he completed his thesis on the design of a new central library in Memphis.

After beginning his career with the City of New Orleans, Warren returned to Tennessee to run the Shiloh Regional Library System, a collection of ten libraries in seven counties headquartered in Memphis.

After three years in Memphis, Warren took over the Cumberland County, N.C., library system, which included Fayetteville. During his six years in Fayetteville, Warren programmed and managed the design and construction of a new central library for Cumberland County.

In 1979, Warren was approached by Bob McCoy, a CPA in the Columbia office of Price- Waterhouse, and also by Bob Shell, a Columbia banker with C&S. McCoy and Shell asked Warren to take over Richland County's libraries and completely revamp the system, to include replacing the 32,000- square - foot RCPL at the corner of Washington and Sumter.

Columbia attorney Jay McKay stepped down from Richland County Council to help Warren push the $27- million bond issue for the new library system. Kit Smith, a member of Richland County Council since 1990, was chair of the citizen's committee to back the bond issue.

The bond issue passed with a 73% majority.

Downtown Columbia developer Ed Bagwell assembled the site, and architect Gene Aubry designed the building. Aubry was well- known nationally as the architect of Houston's Central Library. The contractor was M.B. Kahn.

Author/editor/television host Bill Buckley used the RCPL to prepare his guests' introductions for Firing Line on PBS.

Tonight Show host Johnny Carson tapped the RCPL for his occasional "Questions Librarians Are Asked" comedy routine.

RCPL's local funding has increased each year under Warren's leadership, rising to $29.6 million for 2009 from $1.5 million in 1980. Last year, RCPL's 11 locations attracted 2.1 million visitors. Circulation was more than 3.3 million.

Warren has two daughters and a son. The older daughter, Meredith Godbold, lives in Mt. Pleasant, S.C., with her husband and two daughters. She is a speech pathologist at East Cooper Hospital.

His younger daughter Julia Warren has a two- year- old son. They live in Lexington, Ky., where she raises horses.

Warren's son Aaron is a production manager for Atlanta's Scientific Games, the people behind scratch- off and lottery tickets.

Upon retirement this April, Warren plans to return to tennis while he extends his career as a library building programmer and design consultant, where he'll be forming needs assessments and helping to select architects. He is consulting for the new central library in Winston- Salem, N.C., and a large library outside New Orleans, La.

RCPL's board of trustees has launched a national search for his replacement.