Harry Courtright, Director of Maricopa County, Announces Retirement
By Michael Kelley Jun 16, 2011Harry Courtright, the innovative and iconoclastic director of the Maricopa County Library District (MCLD) in Arizona, is retiring effective August 5.
"I've been fortunate to work in some wonderful places with some really wonderful people that allowed me to do exciting and new things, particularly here in Maricopa, including things that by some librarians' standards shouldn't be done," Courtright said. "I hate to leave. However, it's time," he said.
Courtright, 74, who has led the district since 1999, is best known for introducing a cataloging taxonomy at the district's Perry Branch in 2007 that does not rely on the Dewey Decimal Classification. Instead, Courtright decided to use BISAC subject headings from the Book Industry Study Group, which he felt would facilitate browsing, a part of his customer-centric approach to librarianship that emphasized customer service over tradition.
"Our whole customer orientation approach has changed our library system and, to some extent, the library world, because libraries around the country are adopting things we have been spearheading and that makes you feel good," he said.
Eight of Maricopa's 17 libraries now use the BISAC system. Three more are scheduled for conversion this year.
Courtright also implemented the one-desk concept in Maricopa, which gave patrons a single, centralized place to seek help and freed other library employees to rove the libraries to assist customers. He introduced comment cards in all branches as well as an annual customer survey and focus groups to make sure that library policy was in line with what patrons wanted.
"You ask people what they want, they'll tell you in a minute," he said. "And I think the thing we do differently is we listen to that on a regular basis," he said.
Courtright credited his staff and his board with buying into innovation.
"I think he and his staff were innovative. He hired innovative people," said Toni Garvey, the director of the Phoenix Public Library. "For example, the Dewey-less project. He did a good job of hiring people who would come up with innovative ideas," she said.
Marshall Shore, a former adult services coordinator in Maricopa and one of LJ's 2008 Movers & Shakers, was instrumental in bringing the Dewey-less project to the Perry Branch.
"Congratulations to Harry on his retirement. He provided me the opportunity to break into library consulting by creating a library that listened to it's customers and answered with becoming Deweyless. It began a national dialogue that still continues both inside and outside of the library arena," Shore said.
Courtright has also worked to deliver library services to underserved areas, Garvey said.
"... Harry has tried to do a good job of bringing the county libraries to the table with other libraries in the area and to really clarify the mission of the county library district," Garvey said. "He certainly has done his best to serve people in the unincorporated areas and to offer small, incorporated areas a partnership by which they can offer library services," she said.
A new library in Aguila is a good example of this effort, Courtright said.
"It's an unincorporated little town out in the middle of nowhere in the desert. It has a couple of thousand people," he said. "We put a library in that community that is the heart and soul of that town and that is something I can be proud of," he said.
Susan Evans, the director of the Yuma County Library District, AZ, welcomed Courtright's contributions at the quarterly meetings of the state's county library directors.
"He's done great things for his district, and he's not afraid to try new things," she said. "He was certainly involved, and we valued his expertise and contributions. He wanted libraries to be used and he would work toward ways to make them usable," she said.
Courtright has opened or rededicated 15 libraries in Maricopa, the newest being the White Tank Branch Library & Nature Center, named one of Library Journal's New Landmark Libraries Honorable Mentions; it was also the first Arizona library to receive a LEED Platinum designation for its environmental design, according to a library press release.
"We've built a lot of buildings and they are all relatively small and that's by design," he said. "With ebooks coming and downloadable movies you don't need these big buildings because this stuff is all going to be available electronically," he said.
Those new to the library field need to bear a few things in mind, Courtright said.
"I urge my staff here to be open-minded and be willing to take risks. Not everything you do is going to be successful and that's not a bad thing. You should learn from what doesn't work and focus on the customer, not on what traditional librarianship is all about because traditional librarianship doesn't work anymore in my opinion," he said.
Before Maricopa, Courtright was director of the Library Network in Michigan and of the Delaware County Library System; he also worked in the state library of Pennsylvania.
