Kassab is a librarian in the Brooklyn Public Library system, but she’s also a wife, mother, and a singer/songwriter for Lost in the Stacks, a group of librarian-musicians (or is it musician-librarians?).

She is also starting an acoustic music ensemble with her brother and cousin, to be called Missing in Action.

"My mom and my mom's mom were very involved with music when my grandmother was a sharecropper during the Great Depression and my mom used to play the piano, but she wanted a guitar," said Kassab. "But my mom's mom told her if you pick cotton a lot, then you have the guitar. She used to sing to us until we went to sleep. We would play as a family -- the seed was planted from birth."

Kassab took music classes in college while she was getting her degree in psychology with a certificate in Early Childhood Education. She wants to go back to school to get a bachelor's degree in Music.

Kassab, who now has a master’s degree in library science, began working in a library in 1983 when she graduated from the School of Library Science at Pratt Institute. She is now a “cluster librarian” for six branches -- Coney Island, Brighton Beach, Olmer Park, Gravesend, Homecrest, and Sheepshead Bay.

"I didn't grow up thinking about becoming a librarian, but my parents took me to the library in Park Slope and it was a part of my growing up,” she said. “As  I got older, my friends and I would hang out at the Park Slope Library and we would usually get kicked out for being noisy.

"Later on I was a single parent finishing a psychology degree and I had loans and I needed a job and the library was hiring. I got the job and I never regretted it, because it was the best thing that ever happened to me. It's a rewarding opportunity and a privilege because you have the chance to direct people in the right place."

The library, she stressed, can be many things to many people in the community, for everyone from toddlers to the elderly.

But Kassab fears that resources will be limited through budget cuts. Although the Bloomberg administration decided that no library employees would be laid off as was predicted, the Brooklyn branches will be open five days a week instead of six (except for the Brighton Beach branch, which will continue its Saturday hours).

"There's a reason why Brooklyn Public libraries have been around for over 100 years,” Kassab said. “The library has evolved with the needs of the people.

"It is a safety net for the community.”