The Rodgers Memorial Library Board of Trustees officially welcomed Chris Sweeney to his first meeting as Interim Director on October 21, following the official retirement of former Director Linda Pilla on September 25.
“Chris Sweeney has been a long-time employee of the library. She’s more than capable of standing in until we find somebody to fill Linda’s shoes,” said Board Chair Mimi Guessferd. “I first started working with Chris almost 30 years ago with my first job as a grown-up. We had a really good working relationship then, and we still have one now.”
“Thank you, Chris, for stepping in. You’ve been doing a wonderful job,” added Board member Susan Jones. “We appreciate it very much.”
Board member Ali Rafieymehr noted that a leadership transition during the holiday and budget season was not the easiest, as the Interim Director thanked library staff and the Board for their support.
“The staff is amazing, and it made it easy for me to say yes to stepping into the interim position knowing that I had support from the Trustees and knowing that I had that support from the people at the library,” said Sweeney. “It’s a little scary, but I think we’re up to it.”
Pilla previously expressed her intention to help out with the transition, including work related to the next budget.
Her first formal library report to the Board was relatively quick.
“We’ve hired someone for the Children’s Room, so we’re really excited about that. We’ve put out the offer letter and we’re waiting for her to get back to us,” said Sweeney. “Our numbers are good-they’re what we expect. We always see a dip in September when the kids are going back to school, but when we go year-to-year, we’re up. Everyone is working hard and we’ve got a lot of great programs coming up.”
The library was struggling to make progress on fixing a broken elevator due to a parts shortage.
“We were able to contact the person that we have used for our elevator since it was put in, though he is retiring in like months. He came out, looked at it, and found that the pump is dead. He tried to find another pump and has had no luck,” said Sweeney, who hoped to connect with another repair company she believed would be able to retrofit the broken elevator. “We are hoping there’s something they can do-a pump they can slip into the panel that will work with everything and be fairly inexpensive versus ‘it’s dead’ and we need to look at a full replacement.”
She stated that the broken elevator made it more difficult to move heavy books, furniture, and equipment to and from storage.
The search for a permanent Library Director also continued, with the Trustee Chair already identifying at least one promising candidate.
“I think we’ll have someone coming in for an interview very soon, and then if that doesn’t work out the way we’d like it to, we’ll just repost and start all over,” said Guessferd.
