>>Jennifer: We've created a learner guide for today's session.

Our learner guides are created to encourage you to extend your learning on the topic.

They're structured to bring a couple of questions for consideration and a couple of activities.

But they can be customized.

If you have specific steps that you would like to bring to your work, use that guide and make it your own for your own team's purposes.

So definitely take that -- 

advantage of that.

I'm so excited to welcome our presenter today and carol, I realize I forgot to ask you how to pronounce your name so I'm going to let you say it so I don't say it wrong.

  CAROL: OK, I am Carol Mikulski.

Good Polish name.

>> This is Carol Mikulski, welcome.

She comes to us as a member of the Wallingford Public Library board of directors where she also chaired the process to hire a new director, the committee, and she also serves as the president for the association of Connecticut library boards.

Welcome, Carol, we're so glad to have you hear to share your learning around hiring a new library director.

  CAROL: Thank you very much, Jennifer.

I'm very excited to do this presentation.

As Jennifer knows, I was a little bit hesitant.

I've never made a Power Point myself.

With help of Jennifer and a wonderful digital navigator at my library, I was able to get it done.

Thank you for having me today.

Today, we're going to talk about navigating the library director hiring process.

As Jennifer said, I was participating in this last summer to hire a new director for our library.

So hopefully, the steps that we followed will be helpful to you if you ever have to hire a new library director.

Again, I am Carol Mikulski.

Just a little bit about my background, I am an educator, retired educator.

20 years in the classroom and 20 years as a building administrator and you'll see why during my presentation.

That's kind of nice to know.

I've been a member of the Wallingford Public Library board of directors since I retired.

I've been on for 12 years now.

Unfortunately, this is my 12th year.

So I have to get off.

And I have to say I will be very sad to leave the library board of directors.

Last summer, when our current director decided she wanted to retire or not really retire, start a new career, the current president of the board called me and asked me if I would chair that committee.

I had been president of the board for three years before that and with my background hiring people as an educator, I guess I thought I was a good fit.

I'm president, as Jennifer said, of the association of Connecticut library boards, ACLB.

I've been on that board for a couple of years.

When I was first approached about doing this process of hiring a new director, I went right to our website because we have a handbook there and it had a whole chapter on how to hire a new director with lots of information and lots of links so I certainly did use that to get me started.

So hiring a library director, of course, is the biggest decision -- most important decision a library board can make.

Finding and retaining a good director is vital in creating excellent library service for your community.

And it's a huge responsibility and the expense in hiring the wrong person can sometimes be very sizable.

So you want to make sure you get the right person.

There's some basic qualities in a good library director.

First of all, common sense.

That should not be overlooked.

It's essential.

It's a critical part in policy development.

Decision making ability.

Person has to be very self-confident.

They have to be able to make decisions on the spot sometimes when you're dealing with patrons and the public, you know situations can arise and they might be called upon to make a good decision.

So sometimes they have to make tough decisions, even within their own staff and about their own library.

People skills.

Most important.

We know libraries are very people oriented.

We serve the public.

So library director must be customer focused, have really good communication skills.

Should be fair, friendly, have empathy and a sense of humor with the patrons and, of course, with their staff.

Vision.

They should know how to change and innovation, how change and innovation might improve library service.

Libraries are changing constantly so we need to make sure we have someone that can kind of look ahead and have a vision.

And then integrity.

You have to have a commitment to ethical behavior, you have to have the core values of the library profession.

And then any skills specific to your library's future.

For example, when we were going to hire a director, we thought we were going to be doing a capital campaign and still do think that.

So we wanted someone who maybe had some experience in fundraising or capital campaigns.

If you're going to be doing a building project, you might want to look for someone who has some knowledge of a building project or has done a building project.

If DEI is important in your library, as it was in mine, you want to make sure you have someone who knows about DEI and is very invested in that whole concept.

So those are basic qualities of a good library director.

The preliminary focus, first thing you have to do is appoint an interim director if there's going to be a gap between when your outgoing director and new director can start.

We started the process in March when our director told us she was going to be leaving us.

And we did not have a new director in place until September.

It takes a long time which is you'll see as I go through the process.

So we had to hire an interim director because our outgoing director was going to be leaving in June.

In our case, we appointed the assistant director as our interim director.

She also had told us she had no desire to become the director.

She wanted to remain an assistant.

So you got to appoint an interim one.

And then you should assess the library and current needs.

We have a policy and personnel committee and we always have the chairperson of that committee do an exit interview on any staff member that leaves.

That gives you some insight into how they feel about the library and their jobs and people they worked with.

So it really is a good idea to do an exit interview.

You should have opinions from library users and non-users.

Getting information from non-users is challenging, but you should have an idea of what your users and maybe what your non-users are looking for in a library.

Strategic plan is another way you can get some current needs.

We always have done surveys when we do our strategic plans with staff, with the public, with community groups.

So we kind of knew or kind of know what our community is looking for.

Unconscious bias.

It's something that we didn't really think about.

But we probably should have.

It's the term for the mental processes that cause a person to act in ways that reinforce stereotypes even when in our conscience mind, we would deem that behavior counter to our values.

For example, you may say to yourself, oh, I'm not biassed against a certain group of people.

But then maybe you -- when you see them, you think oh, oh, you know, a little hesitant.

You want to deal with that person.

Do you want to get involved?

So it's things that we're not really aware of but we all have.

It exists in recruiting.

And employers must name it and address it.

It can create a workplace that is lacking in diversity.

So sometimes we have a preference for one candidate over another because of their name or their cultural fit or they shared an alma mater.

So those are all unconscious bias.

So when you're thinking of a job description, you must use inclusive language.

And you must make sure that if your library is involved in DEI efforts in the job description it states that.

Be aware of bias on videos if you're going to do any kind of videos, any kind of interviews via video or Zoom or Webinars, sometimes background noise or interruptions, the -- it's out of control of the candidate so you have to be aware of that.

And you have to standardize the interview, use the same questions.

We'll talk a lot more about that when we talk about interview questions but it's very important to make sure that you always use the same questions for every candidate.

So these were the steps that I took and my committee took to be taken.

And we're going to go into each of these.

First, you have to form the committee.

Then you have to make sure you have an up-to-date job description.

You have to post the opening.

Review applications.

Select some semifinalists.

Set interviews.

Determine the finalists.

And then some people want to do a second round of either interviews or presentation.

We can talk about that.

You pick a candidate and then for most important, you have to get the board -- full board approval of what you're recommending.

So form a committee.

The board president in conjunction with the outgoing library director, current library director should form the committee.

And it should include staff members.

Again, as I said, our assistant director was on this committee and boy, was she an invaluable resource for the staff and for what we were doing.

She was a big help.

But staff members are the most important people on this committee.

And our committee decided that right upfront.

They're the ones that have to work with the library director on a day-to-day basis.

Yes, the board members work with the director and oversee the director but we don't have to work with that person daily.

So we have some board members on our staff -- on our committee, and I have to say, the staff members, we had three and board members we had six.

And if I were to have any input and I didn't, I'd make it a little bit more equal.

Staff members to board members.

You should make sure that your committee has some diversity.

Our board is a 15-member board.

We're quite a large library.

And so we do have diversity on our board.

And so the board president made sure that there was one of those diverse members on this committee.

You might also want to have an outside library director or retired director help you out.

Our outgoing director had recommended to me that maybe we have someone that we could pay a little stipend to.

She knew of a retired director in a neighboring town that had done this before.

So we, the committee decided to use her.

She wasn't involved in every single thing that we did.

For example, she did not review all the applications, but there were certain things that we really did value her opinion as a library director.

Some boards may want to hire a consultant.

Of course, this gets into money.

But maybe they feel that they just can't do it on their own.

So they might need to hire a consultant.

And then the president determines the committee chairperson.

As I said, the president at the time called me and asked me if I would be the chairperson of this committee.

And then you meet with the committee to go over the process and, of course, this is where I started mine.

I had an agenda for that first meeting.

I tried to have some forms ready that we would be using.

That wasn't possible because I have to kind of create my own forms.

But boy, if you have forms that you know ahead of time and you can go over them with a whole committee when you meet, very important.

We had -- we were picking the library director over the summer.

So our timeline had to work around when people were all available.

So it's important when you have a meeting to cover a lot.

And then very important, confidentiality.

We stressed this throughout the process that we as a committee had to keep anything that we learned, heard, read, was confidential.

I do remember one of my board members came up to me when she knew I was going to be the chairperson and she said Carol, can I talk to you about some person that I think is going to apply?

And I said no.

You really want to keep this all confidential.

You want to not be biassed in any way.

So confidentiality is very important throughout this process.

And then you also have to keep in mind and I'll talk about this a little bit during.

Freedom of information.

You might be subject to freedom of information, so any notes or documents that you use are maybe subject to freedom of information.

So I'll talk a little bit more about that later.

This is the timeline that my assistant director came up with.

And it did change, you know, this was when we first started.

We thought, OK, we'll start on April 12th and move on.

And then you can see kind of down towards the bottom, there are not dates because we knew we were going to run into things that would push them back a little bit more.

So it takes about two months -- 

a month for -- once you post it, just to get applications.

It takes a good length of time for the committee to review the applications.

So there's a lot involved, and it does take a lot of time.

Looking down at the bottom of that timeline, you'll see over at the right, who did what.

So the current library director did some things.

The assistant library director did some other things.

The board president, the committee chair and the retired librarian.

So we all kind of knew upfront what our responsibilities were.

So job description.

The current director should develop a job description.

I had asked my outgoing director about two years ago if she could give me a job description.

Because we wanted to post some sample job descriptions on our website.

So she had done that for me.

But as we all know, things change over time.

So I asked her to please do an updated job description which she did change not extensively but she did change some things.

So you need to have a very current job description.

It should include any DEI efforts.

Our library had been instrumental in our town to start DEI efforts and have a DEI committee from the town.

So we were very much involved in this.

So we wanted to make sure that our next director would also be involved and supported.

And then once the job description is done, we shared that with the committee members.

So they all could see it.

And it was interesting because a lot of board members don't really realize everything that a job -- that a director does.

So then you post the openings.

And we had the library do this.

On numerous websites.

And again, our assistant director did that.

She made sure that she posted it on diverse websites so that we really got a good pool of candidates.

We did not just want candidates from Connecticut.

We posted it on international websites.

And made sure that we could get the best possible candidates.

It should include a little bit about the library.

Again, our library is -- our community is not huge.

It's about 44,000 people.

But our library is very, very well known in our community.

It's well respected.

We do a lot so it should include a little bit about the library and the community that the library serves.

It should include, of course, that job description that the director has done.

And then give a deadline for applications and we gave a month for people to apply for our jobs.

And then our assistant director set up a shared folder in Google drive for the committee members.

So all of the applications were sent there.

So that then when all the applications were in, and the deadline had come to an end, then the committee members could just go into that Google drive and look at the applications at their leisure.

So reviewing the applications, you meet with the committee to go over how to use the Rubric developed for the application review.

I'll show you that rubric and explain why I chose that one.

There's lots of different ways to review applications but show you the one that I used.

This came up with our group.

We had reviewed the applications.

We came up with what we thought was our final five.

And then one of our committee members said, well, I think we should interview a male because our top five did not include a male.

And  We spent a lot of time talking about that.

And so finally, one of our committee members said, well, if that -- if we thought that was so important, we probably should have said that up front before we started this.

And we had not.

So we did decide just to go with the top five candidates.

You have to set a time limit for the committee to review applications.

I believe we set two weeks for the committee to review them.

We had 22 applications.

We thought might get more than that because we are a library that's well known throughout Connecticut.

But we had 22 very good applications.

And then each committee member will send the scores to the chairperson when they're done.

And I'll go over how I did that.

And then I made a chart and a spreadsheet so I could tabulate all the scores.

This is the rubric I used.

It may be hard to read but it is in the packet so you can see it.

Again, being an educator, we use rubrics in teaching all the time.

And I had this done before the committee met.

And I shared it with them.

And they all looked at it and they said oh, yep, I know how to use that.

That looks simple.

We can do that.

But then when they actually started using it, when they started reviewing applications, they had a harder time with it.

For example, the first heading education, a master of library science from an accredited institution.

Well, that should be a yes or no answer.

And you've got to mark 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5.

What I did when I got questions like this, I said well, if you're really reviewing the applications, you should do a one time read through and then go back and look at these different sections.

And so, for example, if you really feel this person might be a good fit, you might give it a 3.

If you think this person has everything we're looking for, then you might give it a 5.

We had one person that, unfortunately, did not have an MLS so, of course, that person got a 1.

And then if you look at the other big headings, planning, development and leadership, personal management, financial operations, public relations, and overall impression, those I took right from the job description.

And I would look at bullets that were really important for our library, for example, under planning and development and development and leadership, has been involved in initiating and coordinating strategic planning.

We knew we were going to be going right into another strategic plan.

So we wanted to make sure that this person had some experience with that.

Has provided leadership for major projects, construction.

Again, with the capital campaign that might involve some renovation or construction, we wanted to make sure that person had knowledge of that.

So we kind of look at all those headings.

And I picked different bullets from each of the job descriptions that I thought were important for our library to look at for our new director to be at least somewhat versed in.

And then they totally it up.

You can see down at the bottom, the highest score would be an 80.

And so they gave me the score.

And then they sent the scores to me.

And I wanted the top five finalist -- top five candidates first but then I wanted a score from every candidate that they looked at.

So I developed this excel spreadsheet and you can see down the left would be the names of the candidates.

And then across the top were the names of the committee members that looked at the application.

So I would just put in their score for each candidate.

And then totalled them all up.

And then when I presented this at a committee meeting, I kind of highlighted especially the top five candidates that we could have a discussion about it.

So to select some semifinalists.

You determine how many you want to interview.

We had decided we wanted to interview at least five people.

And the committee meets to review that spreadsheet with the scores.

And again, that was kind of a lengthy meeting because everybody scores differently.

That rubric is kind of subjective and so some people may have given one person a really high or another one as very low.

So we really wanted to look at those top five and maybe even a few candidates that did not come up to the top five.

And talk about them.

And decide, OK, which of the five that we really wanted to discuss and interview?

And again, this is where the topic came up, there were no males in the top five.

So you want to discuss and make sure you agree as a team that those are the five people you're going to interview.

And then you notify all those not moving forward.

And the board president did do that via E-Mail.

He notified the ones that were going to not be moving forward in the process.

So interviews.

I'm going to just stop before I take -- go through this slide.

If any of you think you have a really good interview question or have used a really good interview question, if you could put that in the chatbox while I'm talking about this, we can take a look at some of those maybe after I finish with this slide.

So for interviews, you have to determine a set of questions to be used.

I started with a very simple, I don't know, five to eight questions that I had gotten somewhere that were kind of general questions.

And I sent those to the committee.

And I said, OK, these are some general questions.

But are there any specific questions you would like to add?

Maybe, again, specific to what we are looking for, for capital campaign or DEI.

So I got all those questions, additional questions from the committee, and I sat down with my assistant director and we kind of categorized them, you know, because some were very similar.

So we actually came up at the end with 18 questions that we were going to ask each candidate.

And they really -- it was a lot.

But we really wanted to know, obviously we want the best person.

So you want to get the most input.

Then I assigned each committee member the question they will ask.

So if they came up with a question and they wanted to do that, I let them do it and then, everybody on the committee had two questions to ask.

And I assigned them.

Again, it's important that the same questions be asked for each person that you're interviewing and again by the same committee member.

So then you set up the interviews.

I gave -- I sent out an E-Mail to the five candidates.

And I said these are the times for the interviews.

Please give me your top two times that are most convenient for you.

And I was able to accommodate just about everybody.

The one person I couldn't accommodate was from our town and I thought she's probably the one that can make it almost any time.

And then you have to decide whether you're going to do the interviews in person, which I highly recommend, or via Zoom.

We had one candidate from Kentucky.

And she looked like a very good candidate.

So we thought we would interview her via Zoom.

Didn't ask her to come in person.

You have to make sure that all your committee members can attend, excuse me, I'm going to take a drink of water.

You have to make sure all of your committee members can attend each interview.

You can't have anyone miss an interview.

It would not be fair to the applicants.

So then I notified -- you have to allow enough time for each interview.

When we were talking about this, our -- my assistant director said, well, I think we should allow two hours.

I said boy, two hours.

But 18 questions is a lot.

And we -- when we each -- when I started out the interviews, I said we're going to ask you a lot of questions.

I didn't want the applicants to feel they really had to spend a lengthy time answering each question.

So by the time we had asked all 18 questions and then, of course, the applicants could ask us questions, and we could take a break in between two interviews.

Two hours was really not a bad amount of time.

Then we notified the candidates of when they were coming.

Of course, our candidate via Zoom we could do from home.

So that was kind of at her, you know, when she could make it and we all came in via Zoom.

And then I asked each committee member to take notes.

There was -- on their question sheets, they could write notes after each question.

And then at the very end of each interview person, we -- I gave them a quick rating sheet they could look at.

Just an overall impression of what they thought of that person.

And again, I reiterated that this is confidential.

And that we might be open to freedom of information.

So please, be aware of that when you take notes, we collected everything at the end and the library keeps all that information just in case freedom of information comes up.

So Jennifer, did we get some questions?

I'm going to take another drink of water.

>> Yes, definitely, some really great ideas.

Let's see, really -- actually, let me do this first.

Somebody said, how do you feel about rules and policies?

That's a great question to ask.

Surface a lot of different perspectives, I'm sure.

Why do you want to be a library director?

Why this job?

Tell me about something you have recently read.

Another person suggested who is your favorite author?

Definitely get a sense of their reading -- reading interests.

One person said, are you a published author?

That would be interesting question.

And I love this, someone said they were asked what I would do if a toilet was overflowing or if the furnace went out.

So I love that, getting to the logistical everyday potential crises that can arise.

And then there -- here's another one.

Describe an extraordinary experience or interaction you have had at a library.

That's a good approach for sure.

So couple of the questions, Carol, that came up that we can check in on, too, should the current director be involved in interviews?

  CAROL: No, I do not believe so.

Ours had already left at that time.

But I do not think that's a good policy.

To have the current director be on the interview committee.

>> OK.

 CAROL: On the selection committee.

And also, I saw a question about where did you do this?

We did do the interviews at the library.

When we had our interviews except, of course, for that Zoom one.

>> OK.

I thought this was an interesting comment that somebody felt like 18 questions seems like a lot so wondering if, you know, knowing there might be a second interview if it would make sense to put some of those in sort of that second interview or something that I've seen that works well is some of those questions are more clarifying or prompting questions so if maybe you didn't get, they didn't sort of answer with all those things that you maybe have on your checklist, there might be a follow-up question that you could ask so that they might surface those.

But do you have thoughts in terms of how -- did it feel like 18 questions was too much?

 CAROL: No, it didn't.

And quite honestly, we -- and I'll talk about that in my next slide.

But the 18 questions, the committee members said, well, can I ask a follow-up question after they responded to the question?

And we determined no, we would not allow follow-up questions.

Again, to keep everything very equal so that everybody got the same -- the same questions and so we didn't.

Let's go on here, how we determine the finalists.

That will kind of go into what we were seeing.

After the final interview, the committee meets.

And I use a secret ballot approach and I'll explain why.

I'm also on the Connecticut teacher of the year selection committee for teacher of the year.

I have been for 25 years.

And after we have interviewed the finalist for the teacher of the year and we visited their schools, we meet and the first thing we do before we talk about any candidate is we write down who we think the teacher of the year should be.

Without any discussion.

And it kind of shows you right off the bat do we have a good person for the, you know, do we have someone that we all agree on?

So that's how I did it and I did the secret ballot, I said, OK, pick the top two out of the five that we interviewed, pick the top two that you think should move forward.

To the next round.

And then if we don't have a majority, we discussed why they picked who they did.

We had to have a little bit of discussion, but not much.

It was kind of clear who we thought our top two were.

However, we -- our discussion led that we really had three people that we wanted to move forward.

Not just two.

So we determined that we would move three forward to the next round.

Then we wanted to determine what the second round would be.

And here is where you could do some more questions.

Another interview with other questions, maybe a little bit more directed questions.

We decided we wanted to have the candidates do a presentation.

And if a presentation, is there going to be a topic or going to let them talk?

And again, to be fair to everybody.

We came up with a topic that we wanted the three finalists to talk about.

And the topic was, what is the next big thing in libraries?

And we gave them a time limit of 15 minutes.

And it was held at the library which I'll explain in the next slide, too.

And then if a finalist is from out of state which one of ours was, we determined that we would pay the travel expenses for that person to come to Wallingford and do their presentation and meet at the library.

So I notified all the semifinalists and finalists of the results.

And talked to the three moving forward.

And gave them the topic of their presentation.

So second round, as I said, it was done at the library.

We felt it was very important throughout the whole process, as I mentioned, that the staff had some input.

So what we did for the presentation.

We had it before the library opened in the morning.

So that staff could come.

And we invited all the staff and all the board members.

To come to this 15-minute presentation.

We just had a few, you know, coffee and a few pastries or something.

And so they gave their 15-minute presentation and then, of course, our person that was not from Connecticut, we wanted to have time to have -- give her a tour of the library.

So then we wanted to have some way to elicit feedback on candidates for the committee to review.

And so I can't take credit for this.

My assistant director came up with this.

We gave out index cards to all of the staff during the presentation or before.

And we color coded them so one candidate had pink.

One candidate had green, etc.

And we just asked them to, OK, give us your feelings on this candidate.

And I have to say that the majority of the staff did give some kind of feedback for the candidate.

And we collected those.

And then I pulled the committee members after the second round was done.

And said, OK, who is your pick out of the three, which one should be our director?

And it was almost unanimous, I think it was unanimous for us, but then you want to make sure that the feedback from the staff on all those little index cards supports the decision of the committee.

So that the committee really has made a good choice and the staff feels comfortable with that person.

So then you pick a new director.

You have to do a background check on the candidate.

You should do a multistate criminal background check.

We used a company that our town uses to do that for us.

And then have someone do a reference check.

Obviously during the applications they would give us some references.

Here is where we had our retired library director, and she did do the interviews, also.

But we asked her to do that.

She was given the references.

She came up with a list of questions that she wanted to ask.

She shared that with the committee.

And made sure that, you know, again, all the same questions were asked for the references.

So she did that for us.

And then you have to determine compensation.

For the new director.

So board approval.

The board president and the committee make the recommendation to the board for the new director.

This was in the summer for us so he did it via E-Mail.

And then the entire board is asked to approve the recommendation.

You have to make verbal offer contingent on background checks so when you contact the person, just say, OK, you're going to be hired contingent on any background checks.

You should determine a start date.

And you should prepare a letter of hire which really is the library staff does that and the business manager, etc.

So the final steps, as I've said throughout freedom of information, we collected all the forms from each committee member.

They are at the library so if anybody did question how we picked a director and, you know, why.

We have all that information.

And then you determine a time when there can be a public welcoming for the new director including staff and community.

We were lucky that our director, our new director had already worked in our library.

And then had gone on to another library to become a director and then came back to us.

So this wasn't quite as important.

And, of course, all the staff had come to the presentation so the staff already knew the person.

But it's important to make sure that they feel welcome and for the community, again, this person was from our town.

She's on several committees in town so this was not -- I don't want to say a success.

But we didn't have as many people attend as maybe you would have you had an outside person or someone not known in the community.

But it did make her feel welcome.

And the community was involved.

So you should do that.

Now, there's some pitfalls of the process.

Don't hire to the weakness or strength of the former director.

Make sure you evaluate the people on their his or her own merits.

Don't rush the resolution, again, this takes a long time.

It took us several months.

You must reflect on the qualities and the visions that you need.

And then the other thing that we talked about is, OK, what if number one says no?

Is number two a viable second choice?

So if it is, fine.

If not, then you might have to start the process all over again.

But you can't rush into hiring a new director.

Don't take the easy way out.

Not just to promote within.

Make sure you're hiring a person that really will be good for your library.

Assuming all assistant directors are qualified, you need to look at the range and depth of their experience and make sure that they are qualified if that person is applying.

Don't be pennywise and pound foolish.

This is not a time to be frugal.

If you think you need to hire a consultant, by all means do it.

And assuming all candidates are 100% candid.

This, again, I'm going to stress the fact that staff is so important.

One of our three finalists had worked for us for a short period of time.

And two of our committee members, staff members had worked for her at another library.

And even though she came across, you know, all her application looked wonderful.

Her presentation was beautiful.

But what she presented herself and what the staff members kind of knew from working for her, they kind of questioned whether she really was being candid.

So you have to -- and again, thorough background checks, too, to make sure that they're OK.

And don't put too much emphasis on technical abilities.

Your library director needs to be a visionary leader that can -- that can communicate well with the board and the community.

And all those technical things don't necessarily -- they don't necessarily have to be special and have all the best technical abilities.

Jennifer, I saw some questions.

I'm going to stop there to see if there's anything that we can answer before I move on.

>> Yeah, there have been some great questions.

Moving back a little bit to the rubric process, somebody asked would you use the names of the candidates or would you use a number system?

So kind of getting at that anonymity, did you use names?

  CAROL: Use names, yes.

>> OK.

Yeah, I know it would be interesting if anyone has ideas or resources on how to look at blind -- what do you call it?

I don't know what they call it.

What the proper term is for -- 

using more of an anonymous numbers system but that definitely can be interesting.

Somebody definitely and a couple of other folks are interested in terms of scaling for a smaller library with fewer, for instance, their board has five people.

They have 3.5 staff including the director, children's librarian, one full time, one part time, so in terms of committee recommendations for smaller size, do you have ideas of how, you know, would the committee be smaller?

I mean, I think the committee could be smaller.

Or are there other community members that maybe a friend, sometimes if people have a friends group, maybe inviting somebody from the friends would be good.

I'm a big fan of thinking about patron representation, you know, maybe it's a team advisory member or, you know, other folks that are working more directly with the library or partners, direct partners that your organization or organizations that your library partners with.

But thoughts about that, Carol?

 CAROL: I thought our committee was kind of big with nine people on the committee.

So certainly, smaller libraries would not have the pool that we had.

I don't think there's anything wrong with a smaller pool.

I would kind of recommend if you're -- if it's smaller that you do, again, as Jennifer said, maybe get an outside person.

If you have a friends group, invite someone from the friends group to be on that committee.

Maybe like we hired the outside direct ORdirector that would be a good way to get another person on the committee.

You want your committee to be big enough.

I felt nine was a little bit large so I think, you know, every community is different.

And so we kind of have to do what you can and I wouldn't -- I hesitate getting too many from the community unless they're really very active.

Like I wouldn't have the mayor be on the committee or, you know, town councillors be on the committee.

But certainly, we have a Spanish community in Wallingford that we try and do a lot with.

So maybe someone from that group in town could be on the committee.

So certainly, hiring, you know, not hiring but asking people from other organizations in town, you want someone that's going to really look at the whole community so involving them would not be a bad idea.

>> There was a question about compensation.

So my understanding is when you get to the compensation discussion, that's per candidate.

But somebody was asking would compensation have been the same for any of the candidates or was there a consideration of amount of experience or other factors?

 CAROL: We looked at what they were currently making.

Two of them were already library directors.

So you wanted to look -- and they were in Connecticut, so we kind of looked at, you know, what they were getting already.

Our outside candidate, she was not a director but she certainly was a different community where there were several different branches of the library.

And she was head of one branch.

So we would -- have to look at what they're currently getting.

What our outgoing director got.

And see what the difference was.

It was interesting when we went for compensation for this person that we hired back, because she had worked for us before, she wanted a little bit more money than we thought.

But then after looking at everything and discussing it, we decided that, yep, nope, she's right.

We should compensate her a little bit more than we were thinking.

But we had a range.

And what our assistant director kind of looked at the range of directors across the state or not across the state but in communities that were about the same size as ours to see what they were getting.

So we kind of had a range of what we could offer the person.

It wasn't a set amount but, OK, maybe we should start a little bit lower and then as we said, we offered her a little bit more.

So again --

>> Did you include the range on the job description posting?

 CAROL: No, we did not.

>> I know that that -- I know in Washington, it's required now to list salary ranges.

So that could be one way, obviously, the budget is going to guide where that range would be determined.

And sometimes, if you have -- I know also sometimes people will reach out before they begin to apply to check in on that.

So that they know if they are out of that range that they don't apply for it.

But yeah, it does seem like it needs to be flexible ultimately for their experience and where they're coming from for sure.

Let's see.

There's -- there were -- there was a great question for the interview question idea.

I thought this was good.

Provide two to three examples of how you build a collaborative relationship with your library board and town or municipal leaders and what was the outcome?

So I love those stories where they're sort of given the task of thinking about an initiative or a process and being able to use that as an example.

So that's a great question.

Let's see.

Here's a couple other good process questions.

Someone asked how long was your process from beginning to hire?

And then did you have a training process before your new director began?

  CAROL: No, we didn't have a training process for the new director because, again, she had worked in our library so she kind of knew a lot about our library already so we didn't feel the need to train.

Having an assistant director, if we did hire this person from outside of our state, I'm sure the assistant director would have been very involved in the training process.

And, again, our process started in April.

And it didn't -- we made the offer in August and she was able to start in September because, of course, she had to give several weeks notice to her current position.

So it is a long process.

Again, we were working over the summer.

So we kind of had some issues there with vacations, but you just need to take your time.

Make sure you have enough time to do everything.

Make sure the whole team understands everything.

And so it is a long process.

>> Definitely.

And it could, like you said, it could take longer or possibly shorter.

Here's a great question.

Any way of determining a delegator vs. A micromanager, perhaps, in the kinds of questions that are asked.

That's a good one to get at in terms of leadership qualities.

  CAROL: That's a good question.

And I think if you look -- our questions that we used are in the resources and I think there are some questions there that would kind of hint at that.

We certainly were looking for someone who would be a collaborator and work well with everyone.

But I think it comes across, too, as I said, that one candidate not everyone saw it in her but I did see it maybe because I've hired so many people.

I just said, OK, she talks a good game.

It looks like she's really going to, you know, listen to everybody and collaborate with everybody, but just her tone or demeanor led me to believe maybe she won't be so good.

You have to look at the whole picture.

>> It's one of those things where they're bringing up certain things with such emphasis that it feels like it's overcompensating.

Here's another good question so how do you recommend reigning in a rogue so to speak, board member that has its own agenda and manipulating the committee chair or president against what is best for the library.

  CAROL: Hopefully those kinds of people will not be picked to be on the committee unless it's the president, of course.

That's a good question.

I don't know that you can.

You have to say upfront when you're working with your committee, this has got to be a team effort.

And again, we had a couple of discussions that not everybody agreed on everything.

But we're a team, we have to come to consensus and so one person should not be the one that says, OK, that person is not good or the best because it really has to be a team effort.

You've got to listen to everybody just like library directors have to listen to a lot of people, the committee has to listen.

>> Honestly, this question sort of implies even if they're not on the committee, we know that certain board members might want to be more involved so there, I would say, you know, starting way before you are even thinking you're going to need a director, think about the kind of guidelines and policies and expectations that you can set up as a board.

So that, I mean, not that you can say in your policy, you know, in case we have a rogue --

but you can address dissent or, you know, how that is approached and emphasize the role of the committee.

Sounds like this situation, the person was on the committee.

But yeah, then it is -- and sometimes, I feel like there are folks that see their role as that rogue, you know, they're the devil's advocate.

So it can be really hard to work through all of the steps and processes, but I would try to get in front of that in some ways, you know, make sure that it's addressed early on and regularly, I guess, if need be.

But that's super tricky.

Here's another question you might ask to determine their leadership style is to ask what is your leadership style?

And that's interesting because I've seen what I've been seeing in some of the work we've done with Webinars and actually there's a great Webinar at the end of the month that touches on leadership styles, is that sometimes the buzzwords or the latest trend in leadership styles is kind of what people will respond, you know, maybe they did a little reading on leadership styles, so I would encourage you to think about the kinds of questions that might reveal style, you know, again, finding examples, you know, maybe proposing a scenario that involved, you know, conflict amongst staff or, you know, how would you -- I mean, I would encourage scenarios to get at the answer to that question as well for sure.

  CAROL: We did say we want a scenario, you know, about staff and about a patron and so some of our questions did address that.

And that kind of gives you an inkling of what their leadership style might be.

>> Absolutely.

I know you've got a little bit more.

Feel free if folks have other questions, we'll have some time at the very end.

But thanks, Carol.

 CAROL: So you have a new director.

And now it's also very important for the board to evaluate the director.

As I said, I've been on this, this is my 12th year on my board.

We've evaluated the director only twice.

ACLB really supports that you do it every two to three years.

And so the board is responsible for doing this.

We came up with an evaluation form, and the person that did it before me, I did it once and a president before me had done it once.

She doesn't remember exactly where she got the form from.

But if you looked at it, it really did go along with the job description.

So, for example, they would come up with a rating of, OK, does this -- you would put yes, somewhat or no.

And I sent that evaluation form to the staff department heads and we have quite a few because, of course, we're a large library.

And the board members.

And so it was very anonymous and they did not give their names.

I E-Mailed it to them.

They filled it out and they E-Mailed it back.

And there was a column, of course, for don't know.

Obviously, board members do not know everything that a library director does.

So you kind of tally up all the yeses, yes, your library director does this.

The library director does this sometimes or no, the library director doesn't do this.

And I consolidated all the results new England -- numerically and I typed in all the comments and I did put if it was a staff member or board member and I met with the director privately and went over the RULTSZ with her.

As with any evaluation, and being the building administrator and evaluating hundreds of people in my career, evaluation should be a learning experience, not negative.

And in my situation, even though we loved our director, she had done a phenomenal job bringing our library really into the 21st century.

There was some areas that she didn't get all yeses and she said, OK.

I know how I can fix that.

So it's a good way to sit down and talk with your director, and have them come up with a solution.

I probably wouldn't have known all the answers on how to make it better.

But have them come up with it.

Evaluation should never be negative.

It should be a learning experience and hopefully, come up with some good ideas that they can use to make themselves even better.

And then I did share the results with the board.

But I just shared the numerical ratings with the board.

I did not share all the comments with the board.

So you should -- you should evaluate your director.

It's very important.

And it's good for them.

They need some feedback, too, on how they're doing.

OK?

So that's the end of my presentation.

We can go over some questions in a minute.

But the ACLB trustee handbook is wonderful on our website if you want to look at that.

It's got some good chapters.

All the documents that I used and a few that I mentioned that we didn't put in the power point presentation are there.

And then some other resources.

And if you have any questions that you think I can answer, that is my E-Mail address and I'd be happy to answer questions, if you E-Mailed me.

So Jennifer, do we have any other questions that should be answered before we leave?

>> Fantastic.

Thank you so much, Carol.

There are a few more here.

Someone asked if you've ever had a probation period for a new director.

  CAROL: I've never heard of that.

But I suppose that could be something, you know, you could do.

But I've never heard of that, no.

>> I was going to say sometimes I've seen in evaluations like a 90-day check in.

Maybe it's not that full evaluation that you would do, you know, later on at your two or three.

But I think in the same vain of a learning opportunity, it provides an opportunity for a discussion within the context of, oh, you've been here this long.

So focused on their role.

The other thing I was going to mention, you said that there's not necessarily training.

But what were some of the on boarding -- what's some of the on boarding that's done for a new director?

And in your case, like you said, they knew the library.

But what are some of the things that you would recommend that would help them both culturally get on board of the library culture but then also, I mean, I know there's tons of information, the checklist of information that the director takes on.

But can you just recommend a good on-boarding approach?

 CAROL: I think the best thing in any library would be for the new director to meet with their department heads or their assistants or head of programming or whatever, just have a sitdown and discuss with them, you know, what do you see?

This library doing?

What things do you think we should be doing maybe?

What has been done so they get a feel of what's been done although you shouldn't go on past practices.

But again, just meet with your staff.

The staff really knows what's going on in the library.

They know the community.

So they know what they're looking for in a director.

One thing that came up with our director, our outgoing director had always spent time on the information desk even though she didn't have to.

She just thought it would be wonderful.

That's the way she gets to know her patrons and whatever.

And so I did mention this to the new director.

And I said, well, you know, everybody loves that the old director would sit in the information desk, and she says, you know, I really need a little bit of time to really get the ins and outs of this library because she had been gone for four or five years.

But now she's doing it.

So good way to know the patrons.

>> For sure.

That's excellent.

Well, thank you so much, Carol.

People are saying this is timely and helpful.

So we know this will be super useful for folks as they move through hiring directors.

Thank you to everyone who was here.

Thank you for your contributions to chat.

It's always great to get ideas and questions from you all.

Thanks to our captioner and support.

And everyone have a great rest of your -- or I guess we're just in the very beginning of our week, but rest of your week and Carol, thank you again so much.

And your library is obviously lucky to have you as a board leader, committee leader.

So thank you again for sharing this with many, many more folks that will be able to use it at their library.

 CAROL: Thank you for asking me.

It was a pleasure doing it and I hope I've answered a lot of questions and given kind of an overview of how to hire a good library director.

>> Super helpful.

Excellent.

Just a reminder to everyone that I will send you an E-Mail later today, once the recording is posted.

And automatically send you a certificate.

I'll probably mail that by Friday.

So you'll get that automatically.

You don't need to request it.

And we also ask, I'm going to send you to a short survey as you leave.

If you don't have time to take the survey, link will be in the E-Mail.

We really appreciate your feedback and share it with Carol but helps in our ongoing program planning.

Let us know other topics you'd like us to explore.

And thanks for taking the time to do that.

All right.

Everyone have a great day.

Thank you!