Thursday, June 5, 2014

Messages from Urbana Free Library's new executive director

The blog has been quiet in recent months, but I wanted to step in for a moment with a couple of messages from Celeste Choate, who joined Urbana Free Library as executive director in April.

The first is an excerpt of an interview with Choate conducted by Sean Powers of Illinois Public Media. In it, Choate addresses a portion of the concerns that lead to last summer's #Bookgate controversies. You can listen to the excerpt here: http://will.illinois.edu/news/player/new-urbana-library-director-reflects-on-book-weeking-librarys-future

The second is a note from Choate to Urbana Free Library patrons and others in the community that is posted on the Library's website: http://urbanafreelibrary.org/article/2014/05/31/executive-director

If you haven't had a chance to meet Choate yet, I hope you'll take her up on her offer. I had lunch with her last week and look forward to what seems to be a new era of transparency and responsiveness in the Library's administration. I'm eager to hear what staff and other patrons think so far.

Have you met Choate? If so, what were your impressions?

-Carol