News

On April 21 Mitchell Daniels, president of Indiana’s Purdue University, sent a letter to staff announcing his intent to reopen the campus this fall. Although his ideas about ensuring safety for a campus population of more than 50,000 people have met with some skepticism and pushback, individual campus leaders have their own ideas for a careful return. One of these is Beth McNeil, dean and Esther Ellis Norton Professor at Purdue University Libraries and School of Information Studies, who believes that a measured reopening of the university’s eight libraries is possible. 

In 2016, a man set fire to a library in St. Cloud, MN. Allister Chang had an opportunity to speak with Karen Pundsack, director of the Great River Regional Library System, to reflect on what the library learned from the experience that is applicable to its COVID-19 response today. She demonstrates how library resilience transfers from one disaster to another, and in the process, the resilience of libraries as social infrastructure.

We all know that libraries are under attack, especially in regards to funding, pretty much all the time. I think part of our collective fear at this moment is local governments thinking that because we closed that we aren't really that important. I believe some are feeling that tension without verbalizing this sentiment. We worry about the short-term as well as the long-term consequences that our closings will have on our libraries. However, I do not thinking rushing to reopen solves this issue.

Deciding whether—and when—to close doors to the public is merely the first of countless decisions that librarians have had to make during the COVID-19 outbreak. Library Journal’s survey of public library responses to COVID-19 captures the myriad behind-the-scenes choices, such as whether or not staff will continue to report to work in person after libraries are closed, that public libraries are facing as they handle the crisis.
 

Vocational awe. Burnout. Low morale. Precarity. Undercompensation. Together, the themes I see cropping up in LIS research, conference presentations, and Twitter point to a chronic problem.

Proponents of "grit" claim that developing a combination of passion and perseverance is the most significant factor shaping one’s life. The problem is, this contention ignores a great deal and has unintended negative consequences.

Library trustees are charged with evaluating the ­director’s performance—and, often, securing a director when the position opens up. Trustees need to act efficiently, in these moments of pending vacancy, to secure leadership for their library. There are many considerations that arise when a director submits that dreaded resignation letter. Here are a few.

When Clyde Scoles, longtime director of the Toledo Lucas County Public Library (TLCPL), OH, died unexpectedly in February, Deputy Director Jason Kucsma stepped up as acting director for the 21-branch system. Scoles had announced his retirement only a few weeks before, and Kucsma was already considering his next steps. On August 1, the TLCPL board of trustees voted to appoint Kucsma as executive director and chief financial officer. 

The Leander Public Library (LPL), TX, has drawn criticism for proposed changes to meeting room and speaker policies—instituted not by the library, but by city government of this suburb north of Austin. LPL has been run by private library administrators Library Systems and Services since it was established as a city department in 2005. In the wake of several recent instances of programming deemed “controversial” by city leadership, amendments to library policy have drawn the attention of residents, city council members, and library and civil rights associations.