Search for library president narrows
Public interviews of several finalists planned tomorrow
Two of the four candidates vying to become the next president of the Boston Public Library are women, and a third is a longtime leader of a Latino librarians' organization.
Susan Hildreth, chief librarian for the State of California; Amy E. Ryan, library director for Hennepin County, Minn.; and Mario M. Gonzalez, former director of the Greenwich, Conn., library, confirmed they are on the short list of candidates expected to take part in public interviews tomorrow at the central library in Copley Square.
The identity of the finalists has been a closely guarded secret among members of the 14-member search committee, which winnowed down a pool of about 160 candidates.
The Globe reported last month that former state Senate president and onetime gubernatorial candidate Thomas F. Birmingham was also among the finalists. It was unclear whether Birmingham is a fourth finalist to be interviewed tomorrow or whether he has dropped out.
The full roster is scheduled to be disclosed tomorrow at 8 a.m., when interviews begin in a 50-seat glass-walled auditorium. The eight-member Boston Public Library board of trustees will question each candidate for about an hour, call one or more back for follow-up questions, and then begin deliberations at 3 p.m. If they fail to agree, they could continue deliberations Friday.
The entire process will be open to the public, although no one will be allowed to ask questions or provide input except the trustees. Still, it promises to be one of the most public selection processes for any Boston library chief or official in the Menino administration.
The extraordinary openness follows criticism last fall that the trustees' ouster of the former library president, Bernard A. Margolis, was orchestrated behind closed doors by Mayor Thomas M. Menino. Margolis rarely saw eye to eye with the mayor during his 11-year tenure, and, on his way out, Margolis publicly criticized Menino, comparing his administration to an authoritarian regime with an "anti-intellectual bent." City officials shot back with criticism that Margolis paid too much attention to the main library at Copley Square and not enough to the 27 neighborhood branches.
Healing divisions with City Hall, with some library support groups, with large donors, and within the library itself will be some of the more difficult tasks facing the next president. The head of the search committee, former Harvard Business School dean John H. McArthur, has said that people skills were one of 39 criteria in selecting the finalists, as were leadership experience and knowledge of new technologies.
Hildreth, the California state librarian, has more than 30 years of library experience, including eight years as chief librarian for the City and County of San Francisco, where she managed a staff of 650 with an annual operating budget of $59 million. She was appointed California state librarian in 2004 by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Hildreth now oversees the collection, preservation, and dissemination of resources at the state library, the central reference and research library for state government and the Legislature. She also provides technical assistance, outreach programs, and fund-raising assistance to California's public libraries.
She said this week that she considers the Boston post "the opportunity of a lifetime."
"I think it's an absolutely amazing institution with such vast historic resources that need to be stewarded as well as possible, but it also is serving its community with 27 branches," she said. "The branches are the heart of any library system; one of my goals would be to have the branch libraries as vibrant as possible."
Ryan, of Minnesota, spent 28 years working at the Minneapolis Public Library before taking over the suburban Hennepin County job in 2005. In Minneapolis, she held leadership posts overseeing community branches, fund-raising, and administration.
"The community library system is something that I'm just passionate about," Ryan said in an interview this week.
Ryan said she loves her job but found the Boston opportunity too compelling an opportunity to not explore. "From the point of view of the library, Boston has it all," she said. "And then, of course, there's the city, Boston. Both my parents are from Boston. Although I've never lived in Boston, it's always been part of my heritage."
Gonzalez spent nine years at the helm of the Greenwich library before resigning in May. The Greenwich library is second in circulation in New England only to Boston. During his tenure, children's programming increased, and the library and its patronage expanded, Gonzalez said.
Gonzalez left because it was time for him to move on and do other things, he said. A local newspaper, the Greenwich Time, reported earlier this year that an outside survey commissioned by the town showed poor morale among his employees. Gonzalez said that after the survey, taken by 24 of his 180 employees, he worked to build morale and improve communication.
He said that he is looking forward to the opportunity to work in "a city of neighborhoods" like Boston. "It's very diverse, and that appeals to me," said Gonzalez, an executive board member of the American Library Association and founder of the New England chapter of Reforma, a Latino librarians' organization.
Birmingham, who did not return calls for comment, was president of the Massachusetts Senate from 1996 to 2002, when he ran for the Democratic nomination for governor but lost to Treasurer Shannon O'Brien.
Donovan Slack can be reached at dslack@globe.com. 