Greene County libraries and the Greene County Librarians Association are cited across the state for their collaborative efforts, said Iowa Library Services consultant Maryann Mori.
Mori’s comments were made at a county-wide training for library trustees hosted by the Jefferson Public Library last month. The training was attended by 16 trustees and six librarians representing the public libraries in Grand Junction, Paton, Churdan, Scranton and Jefferson. Those five libraries are all accredited by the State Library of Iowa.
The training covered the primary roles of library trustees: advocacy for the library, planning, monitoring and evaluation, policy adoption, and hiring/evaluating the director. General meeting procedures and Iowa’s Open Meetings law were also discussed.
“Since all trustees are required to have continuing education each year, we wanted to offer it to our trustees as a group event. It was a good opportunity for the trustees from all the libraries in Greene County to meet and interact with each other,” Jefferson library director Jane Millard said.
That sort of collaboration is not typical. “The libraries of Greene County do so many activities together, and I often mention them as a ‘good example’ when I’m sharing information at other county library meetings,” Mori said. “Greene County libraries collaborate to provide an annual Toddler Fest, summer reading activities, a county-wide adult reading program, and teen gatherings. I’m quite impressed at how often they collaborate to provide extraordinary activities and services for all Greene County residents. Now they’ve added county-wide trustee training to their list of collaborative efforts, and they anticipate making this training an annual event.”
