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Director Beth Elder's "chilling" management shake-up has wobbled Salt Lake City's stalwart library system, rattled award-winning staffers who privately fear for their jobs, and, in a boomeranging twist, soon may place the director herself in jeopardy.
Employees, who canceled the annual Christmas party due to cratered morale, are fretting that confusion will rule Monday when the sweeping changes take effect. Yet beyond the structure at all six branches and service to the public, weighty questions suddenly hover over the library's top leadership itself.
Three board members have resigned in recent months, including one veteran who bolted at year's end with no explanation. That follows a nearly unanimous "vote of no confidence" in Elder that was cast by library managers in the spring. Insiders say the reorganization, which prompted a mini-exodus and at least five demotions, was return fire from the director. She denies it.
Elder's three-year contract expires in April. That means a gutted, five-member board — four seats shy of its statutory number — soon must vote on whether to retain the controversial director. Pressure on the board is mounting to cut her loose.
"I don't know if there's a coup, but it's still an open question," board member Mark Alvarez says. "For me, the jury's still out. We're certainly aware of some of the grumbling. I've heard enough to know it is significant."
Clint Watson, president of the Library Employees Organization, says he has huddled during the past month with 100 employees dejected by the "chilling" overhaul.
"I haven't heard from anyone who is very happy," he says. "Even the managers who ended up keeping their job — they were disillusioned that they had to reapply for it.
"I don't see how communication is going to work with the new plan. It looks like a logistical nightmare."
The new model, based on a strategic plan adopted in 2009, also took its cue from a consultant's report that panned the current system as "a snarl of decision making."
Consultant George Needham reported the library suffers from "considerable dissension," but predicted that retooling the leadership ranks will create "cascading accountability."
Elder sees it as a way to make 21st-century innovations and better connect with busy communities in the information age.
"Everything we're doing is meant to advance the library's mission — to take a very successful library to the next level," says Elder, who was given the exclusive authority to hire and fire. "And I completely believe in it."
Just before year's end, the management ranks were slimmed from 31 to 27. Eighteen supervisors kept their slots while four retired and at least five were moved outside management. Some longtime managers were shipped to different branches, others switched departments and outsiders were brought in to run human resources and finance.
Elder stresses that nobody was fired, nobody took a pay cut, and she insists most of the staff is excited. "There's sort of an anticipatory buzz about Monday. The change that we've undergone has created emotion. It's to be expected, but I think it's time to get back to work."
The library board adopted Needham's report — with some "tweaks" — then instructed Elder to implement it, according to board President Hugh Gillilan. He calls the "malicious" complaints about Elder unfortunate.
"Some of this goes back to the day when Beth walked into the door," he says. "It had to do with the fact Britton Lund was not hired. It was very awkward."
Lund, one of three finalists for director in 2008, served as assistant director before resigning in early 2009.
Gillilan says any chatter about Elder muzzling opposition is wrong, noting the employee handbook includes a clear grievance process that has yet to be used. But he says it is clear the staffers who don't want to see Elder's contract renewed "are obviously beating the drums harder now."
Asked if he expects the board to grant Elder a new, one-year deal, Gillilan said, "So far as I know, yes."
John Becker, the board member who recently walked away, had served as board president when downtown's showcase Main Library was built. In abruptly ending his second stint, he told The Salt Lake Tribune he could not support the library's new direction.
Alvarez calls Becker's departure an "enormous loss," but says Becker simply could not continue under the current regime. "Personally, I'm very sympathetic to that."
Chip Ward, the library's assistant director from 2000 to 2007, calls the Needham report "disastrous" and says forcing supervisors to resign and then reapply is "humiliating." He insists that the library, which was designated Library of the Year in 2006, has seen innovation and tremendous mobility, including up to 50 voluntary moves a year.
"The idea that there's some calcified structure that needed to be broken up with a hammer is not right," Ward says. "For them to issue a vote of no confidence in the director was a very bold, very courageous move. Unfortunately, they've been punished for that. What's happening right now is a purge."
In a Friday letter to the editor, Ward calls on the board to "stop the damage and send [Elder] on her way."
A string of e-mails, letters and posts on social-networking sites — purportedly written by library staffers — echoes the sentiment.
But Elder has her supporters, including Howard Brown, a manager who has worked at the library for three decades and is getting a promotion. "Change always creates new ideas and new thinking," he says. "It's something that I've advocated for years, even before Beth got here. It's time for us to reach that new generation that is much more technologically savvy."
Though not required for advancement under the new rules, a master's degree in library science is "preferred."
Brooke Young, the Riverside branch manager who is moving to the Main Library, says the moves should help clear up the often "hazy line" of communication. "In the long run, it will make everyone's lives easier, just knowing who's doing what."
The revamp is modeled loosely after the Anythink Library System in Adams County, Colo., as well as Ohio's Columbus Metropolitan Library System, which won Library of the Year in 2010. Both have seen significant reorganizations.
"We are just getting the right people into the right jobs — that's where we're starting," Elder says. "Then we're going to ask them what innovative ideas they'd like to implement."
In Colorado, where Elder spent 18 years with the Denver Public Library, changes range from eliminating fines to renaming librarians "guides" to adding outdoor patios with fireplaces.
Elder says Salt Lake City's strategic plan also is focused on upgrading traditional library programs by taking services such as book readings into the community as well as bridging the city's east-west divide. There will be traditional managers, she says, along with those "matrixed" as so-called outcome heads.
That new group — less "top heavy," Elder says — will oversee six new "outcomes" dubbed: Exploring New Ideas, Enjoying Life, Early Literacy, Tech Access, Building the Culture and Local Solutions/Bridging Divides.
"What that means, I don't know. What I hear from staff is they don't know," says Watson, the employee president. "It feels like a lot of corporate-speak and her explanations are very vague. It's too much bureaucracy for an organization that only has 260 people."
Gillilan notes Elder took "flak" at first for not being more visible to the public — like her predecessor, Nancy Tessman — a practice he says the board prompted her to quickly correct. "In retrospect, maybe we should have told her to interface more with staff."
Elder says she has. She knows which employees are artists, in bands, locals or transplants and even the ones with parrots.
"I felt that I connected with everyone," she says, adding she has nothing but respect and gratitude for Ward. "But I don't know if they felt connected with me."
Even so, City Councilman Soren Simonsen — whose wife quit the library board for personal reasons and wrote a letter to the editor backing Elder — suggests success is not a popularity contest.
"She's a very different kind of person and has a vision for where the library should go — and I think that was the reason she was brought on," Soren Simonsen says. "In the corporate world, when somebody shakes things up and the entity becomes more vibrant, we applaud them."
What's next?
P An organizational overhaul of the Salt Lake City Public Library, which affects management of all six branches, takes effect Monday. The changes have led to four retirements, at least five demotions and general unrest toward Director Beth Elder. The overhaul, which also has some fans, was based on a 2009 strategic plan and a consultant's report that found management was "too large and unwieldy to be effective."
In April, a depleted Library Board will vote on whether to renew Elder's contract.