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Library restructuring its workforce, adding more librarians to staff

Citing a top-heavy management structure, Huntington City-Township Public Library Executive Director Beka Lemons says the recent elimination of six staff positions at the library will pave the way to provide leaner, more professional services for library patrons.

Lemons says the layoffs of four department heads and two higher-level assistants are not the result of employees not doing their jobs; she says many of the affected employees have been at the library a long time and their contributions to HCTPL and to the community have been invaluable.

“It is with great regret that we will say goodbye to these employees,” she adds.

The employees laid off in the change can apply for seven new positions being created at the library, including three new librarians to serve full time, marking the first time in many years that HCTPL has had more than one dedicated, professional librarian without split duties.

“It’s kind of a culmination of my being in as a new administrator and setting up a system that I think is going to be the best one for the library,” Lemons explains. “We’ve made so many changes in policies and services over the last two years, that this is the culmination of the next step that we need to take to keep moving into the future.”

The move is also in response to the library board’s challenge to Lemons to create a more appropriate budget level.

“We all agree that the budget that we’ve had for the last six or seven years has really not been appropriate,” she says. “That was one of the things that I recognized when I came in here, that it was a little out of whack. So I looked back at other libraries of our size, where their budgets are at. … We’re working on deciding on what we really need, in order to try to get that budget a little bit more in line with what’s appropriate for a library of our size.”

The seven new jobs will include only two management positions. The change is set to take place in October, Lemons says, with November the target date to have the new librarians hired.

She adds that the library hopes to minimize any noticeable effect of the change.

“Once we get our new folks in here, and they’re settled in to their jobs, they (patrons) will actually see our librarians more, and they will have more time to do programming, and will really focus on those services that our patrons need the most,” Lemons says. “So hopefully, it will be an improvement in services and programming. That’s going to take us a little while to get to that point, but we’re confident that we can maintain our current level of service.”