Editorial: Library director’s tough road ahead

Wednesday, Sept. 2, 1998 | 11:26 a.m.

DANIEL Walters, the director of the public library system in Buffalo, N.Y., has been offered the job to lead the embattled Las Vegas-Clark County Library District. If Walters ends up accepting the job, he'll find that the relations between the library district's employees and its governing board here are chillier than any Buffalo winter he has endured.

As the Sun's Jerry Fink reported Monday, the morale of the library district's staff has been characterized as about as low as it could be in the wake of four years of strife between the board of trustees and the employees. After the resignation at the beginning of 1998 of Darrell Batson, the previous library director, the board of trustees brought in an outside consultant, Carl Rowe, to oversee the day-to-day operations of the valley's libraries.

A Sun editorial in February criticized the hiring of Rowe -- who had no experience in running libraries -- instead of appointing a librarian to run the district until a permanent replacement was found for Batson. But since Rowe has been brought in, a relative calm has developed, although admittedly it is a calm that has the potential to develop into a storm overnight.

To his credit Rowe has identified the problems facing the library district, including the need to find a strong director, who doesn't fear offending either polarized side when making decisions. "The trouble here was misperception, caused by the sides not talking to each other," Rowe said. "It was almost like they got pitted against each other, and once the negative stuff starts to happen, it mushrooms."

In the final analysis, what users of the valley's public library system want is a resource where they can find solid reading materials, including the classics, recent best sellers and up-to-date publications. Whether it's a student doing research for a class assignment or someone simply wanting to learn more, a public library is an essential resource for any community to grow intellectually.

The recent infighting among board members and staff has left a blemish on the library district, leaving the impression that employees and trustees are distracted, eroding the delivery of top-flight services. It's our hope that the new library district director has the stomach and the resolve to bring these warring factions together so that books, not barbs, come to mind when thinking of the valley's public libraries.