Search committee, not trustees, narrows field of candidates

The board of trustees of Roddenbery Memorial Library will gather Monday not only to handle routine business and begin planning for the 2011-2012 operating budget, but also to begin the next step in selecting a new library director.
Susan Perkins, a retired public school system librarian and chairman of the library director search committee, will meet with the trustees next week to go over the committee’s recommendations for finalists.
According to Trustee Lois Duncan, who served as the trustees’ liaison on the search committee, the members of the search committee individually scored each of the 16 applications received for the library director post.
Applications and resumes were accepted through Monday, Feb. 28, and the search committee members, including Chairman Perkins, Mrs. Duncan, Ann Wooten, Dan Broome, Larry Rawlins, Renee G. Theophille, Howard Thrower III and Donna Powell met to go over the applications and present their scoring sheets.
Chairman Perkins will now present the narrowed field of finalists to the board of trustees, which is comprised of Mrs. Duncan, Chairman Thomas L. Lehman and Ann Flowers.
According to Mrs. Duncan, it will be up to the trustees to decide how many candidates to interview and, also, who will ultimately be hired.
“I believe we have a good director in the field of applicants, we’ve just got to make some decisions and, hopefully, it will be the right decision for Grady County and for the library,” Mrs. Duncan said.
Trustee Duncan said that the members of the search committee did their evaluations of each candidate individually and had not discussed them as a group, but she says the results of the rankings done by the committee members were very similar.
Mrs. Duncan said the trustees have not discussed the field of candidates as a body, but they all have been presented the results of the search committee’s review of the candidates.
Mrs. Duncan complimented Chairman Perkins for her work in heading the search committee, and she said the work of the trustees will be much easier because of the involvement of the search committee members in the process.
Although the field of candidates has been narrowed from the total of 16, Mrs. Duncan would not comment on how many candidates are being recommended to the trustees as finalists.
She indicated that information would likely be released following Monday’s meeting of the board of trustees, which will begin at 1 p.m. in the Trustee’s Room of Roddenbery Memorial Library.
The library director position has been vacant since last October when veteran director Alan Kaye retired.
Associate Director Janet Boudet has served as interim director until a new director can be selected.