SWAN Board,
The email below is for you as an update on the list of SWAN libraries we discussed at the SWAN Board meeting on Friday. I followed up with the RAILS Leadership Team as I noted.
Aaron Skog
SWAN Executive Director
125 Tower Drive
Burr Ridge, IL 60527
Phone: 630.734.5122
Fax: 630.734.5056
aaron.skog@railslibraries.info
http://support.swanlibraries.net
From: Aaron Skog
Sent: Wednesday, March 26, 2014 12:21 PM
Subject: Library Tumult Discussion at LT Meeting
RAILS Leadership,
I would like to have a discussion at our next LT meeting to review some of the recent “tumult” that has been taking place. Within SWAN, there are a number of libraries that have lost their directors and are in some sort of gray area.
1. Chicago Heights: its board fired Mike Davis (great guy, former SWAN Board member), now has Xavier Menzies as the acting (?) director, who is also the library director of Markham; we never see Xavier at meetings anymore
2. Grand Prairie & University Park: for several years now Tracy Ducksworth has been the library director for both of these libraries; we never see Tracy at meetings anymore
3. Harvey: board fired its director Jay Kalman, then let go a number of its staff; acting director is now staff member Sandra Flowers
4. Calumet City: its board seems to like firing its library director (Doug Losey was hired then fired after 6 months, then had its reference head as acting, then permanent, then departed mysteriously), and now has put its board president Jane Rowland as the library director (who at least stepped down as board president); Jane showed up to one meeting and purposely did not introduce herself
5. Justice: no longer has Jean McGuire as library director; we have no idea what happened
6. Hodgkins: Lisa Waskin was there for a year and her departure about a week ago was quite sudden, meaning she either resigned or was let go
7. Bellwood: library director Jimmi Wooten is gone; we have no idea what happened but I heard she retired with only a few weeks’ notice
8. Bridgeview: about 1 year ago Rose Taylor was let go, and its board of trustees has put its circulation manager Lori Kinzel as director and does not seem to have any plans to hire a library professional; Lori has been trying very hard to deal with the situation she has been throw into
9. Westmont: now has an acting director Julia Coen after Christine Kuhn resigned
10. North Riverside: Bob Lifka is retiring
11. Blue Island: Sarah Cottonaro is has left to take over as director of Alsip-Merrionette Park PLD
12. Dolton: coincidentally Jay Kalman was at Burr Ridge today for the webinar. Afterwards I found out that he has been contracted by Dolton Public Library to assist with their leadership, as surprise! that board has let go its library director Allison Heard (we updated L2 for Dolton and Jay)
During a conversation I had with our attorney Kathie Henn, I shared that there seems to be a lot of turmoil, and Kathie agreed with me. She noted that there is a lot more politics with board of trustees than there used to be, less civility within board of trustees and with their library director, and there is more micromanaging from trustees. She noted that this is also part of a more general backlash against public employees (think about the pension reform news, changes in Wisconsin, etc.).
I would also add that the RAILS membership criteria having eliminated the Metropolitan Library System requirement of library MLIS degrees for positions probably has not helped. I would describe that this acted as a bulwark against library trustee shenanigans. Kathie Henn was not aware of this RAILS change but once I mentioned it also thinks this is coming into the toxic mix.
The SWAN Board discussed a lot of this at its last meeting and viewed these changes as a possible risk or threat that new library directors will not understand resource sharing, SWAN, or how anything fits together and decide to cut costs by replacing SWAN with some “cheaper” alternative. The SWAN Board noted however, that this problem I have described for you is much bigger than SWAN and would like to engage in a wider discussion with RAILS on what can be done.
Aaron Skog
SWAN Executive Director
125 Tower Drive
Burr Ridge, IL 60527
Phone: 630.734.5122
Fax: 630.734.5056
aaron.skog@railslibraries.info
http://support.swanlibraries.net