On This Date in 1998

Dear Marian,

The new year promises some exciting developments for the Middleton Public Library. For the first time in my 12½ years as director, the city council gave us everything we asked for in our annual budget proposal. More money for library materials. Increased staffing. We’ve already advertised, via South Central and Wisconsin library listservs, openings for a Young Adult Services Librarian (3/4 time) and a Library Assistant II (25 hours per week). We plan to initiate Sunday hours on March 7. The library will be open from 1 to 5 p.m. during the school year. Both Monona and Sun Prairie will also start offering Sunday hours next year. Sun Prairie, by the way, is moving into a new library in April.

There are now 30 members of LINK, South Central’s automation consortium. Columbus will be joining in 1999. We generally have about 40 people at our business meetings, which means that most libraries can no longer host these gatherings. South Central and WLA offices are now located in a business park across the Interstate from East Towne, where they share a large meeting room space. Most of our meetings are held there.

Although Sheila has been retired for a year and a half, we still see her on a regular basis. She enjoys spending time with her granddaughter and taking her to the library.

Joel DeVore retired in August. As much as I liked Joel personally, I always felt he was much too lowkey as a city administrator. So did the city’s personnel committee. They had a particular type of individual in mind when they looked for a replacement. And they found him. Mike Davis, who started in November, had previously been the city administrator at Evansville, WI. In the (not quite) two months he’s been on board, I’ve attended more city department head meetings than during the previous ten years. All of a sudden, there is direct communication among and between departments. It’s a refreshing change.

Hope life is treating you well. Best wishes from all your library colleagues here!