When Nis Kildegaard started work at the Edgartown Public Library in 2006, he was the first full-time male employee in its 102-year-history. By the time he retired Feb. 1, he was one of four men on a staff of nine library employees.

“We call ourselves guy-brarians,” said Mr. Kildegaard, on his last day at the reference desk.

He’s seen many more changes over the nearly 14 years he’s worked for the library, including the biggest of all: its move in 2016 from the 1904 Carnegie building on North Water street to a newly-constructed library next to the Edgartown School.

Mr. Kildegaard literally made his mark on the new library, designing the steel-lettered sign that spells out its name on the brick exterior.

On his computer, he keeps a photo taken while the letters were going up. The sign in the image reads Edgartown Pub, highlighting what Mr. Kildegaard sees as the library’s role in the community.

“A good library is like the village pub,” he said. “It’s a place where everyone is welcome. It’s egalitarian, and they know your name. I had to have that picture.”

Mr. Kildegaard is also known for the extensive collection of close to 100 staplers, the oldest from 1895, that he displayed on his desk. Some will remain at the library, he said.

A connoisseur of typewriters as well, Mr. Kildegaard recently hosted a “type-in” at the library with dozens of typewriters from his collection, some well over 100 years old. About 60 people, both adults and children, came by to experiment with and learn about the machines, he said.

Originally from Chicago, Mr. Kildegaard attended Yale University and later clerked in Washington, D.C. for New York Times bureau chief and columnist Scotty Reston, who owned the Vineyard Gazette at the time. In 1981, Mr. Reston tapped Mr. Kildegaard for work at the Vineyard Gazette as its news editor, a job he held for 24 years.

Mr. Kildegaard also works as a freelance designer and publisher for Island nonprofits including the Martha’s Vineyard Hebrew Center and the Martha’s Vineyard Museum.

He is retiring from the library not for any specific reason, he said, but simply because he feels it’s time.

“I’ve seen what it looks like for people to work too long,” he said. “I certainly wasn’t tired of working at the library. I was always happy coming in the door there. This is a special place.”