After a series of attacks in the press, the executive director of the Brooklyn Public Library, Ginnie Cooper, stepped down yesterday, 18 months before the end of her five-year term.

During her tenure, Ms. Cooper started an early literacy program at the library and conceived a plan to construct a specialized library for the visual and performing arts in downtown Brooklyn, but she also faced much public turmoil. The library said she left to become the executive director of the District of Columbia’s public library system.

In late March, after a librarian lost the tip of her pinkie while trying to break up a fight among several girls, Ms. Cooper decided to temporarily close the popular Brownsville library branch. Mayor Bloomberg called the move an overreaction, and Brownsville residents angrily criticized the decision at a town meeting.

Earlier that month, Ms. Cooper clashed with the library’s board of trustees when they decided not to allow her to go on a $20,000 publicly funded trip to Hong Kong and Singapore for a library conference.

Late last year, the Daily News reported that Ms.Cooper took six extra weeks of vacation. She was forced to return $27,000 in pay. A spokeswoman for the library said Ms. Cooper was not available for comment yesterday.

The Brooklyn Public Library system has struggled with budget cuts, and its branches are currently open fewer hours than those of either of the city’s other two library systems, New York and Queens.

In January, the library announced that it planned to raise between $70 million and $85 million for the new Visual and Performing Arts Library, to be designed by award-winning Mexican architect Enrique Norten.

A member of the library’s board, Danny Simmons, the brother of rap mogul Russell Simmons, has been an