MCALLEN – A Rio Grande Valley public library director has a chapter dedicated to her in a new book honoring librarians all over the world.

Kate Horan is the director at the McAllen Public Library. The book, "World's Leading National, Public, Monastery and Royal Library Directors," was launched before a crowd.

What she finds most endearing are the stories of how her work affects her community.

"I was told this morning that there's a woman that has a one and a half-year-old child. The one and a half year old asked to come to the library. I just thought that was such an awesome story that we have even the littlest children wanting to be here so badly that they're asking their moms to bring them," said Horan.

She oversees the library in McAllen that underwent a transformation from abandoned Walmart to the country's largest single-story public library.

Horan said, "I told my staff when we were coming in here that we're not just going to take the old library and plunk it down into the new facility. We're going to change everything that we do include how we deliver our services. And we have changed. We have many partnerships that allow us to provide more services that we couldn't do on our own with the same staff."

Under her administration, the library grew from about 64,000 borrowers to over 97,000.

Yet, Horan is still looking for opportunities to continue growing.

"The people of McAllen inspire me every day," she said.