Need to change with times is a challenge for any librarian

Libraries just aren’t what they used to be. And that’s not a criticism.

Libraries, at least successful ones, must change with people and the times. That’s a principle by which Carlton Sears, the retiring director of the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County, has operated for 15 years.

And it is a principle with which the incoming director, Heidi M. Daniel, is obviously familiar.

During much of her career, Ms. Daniel has been working most directly with those library users who change the fastest, juveniles and teens. By the time older library users are catching on to what they believe is the latest craze in communications and media, adolescents and teens have already moved on to the next innovation.

The search for a new library director has not been easy or without incident. It has taken a year, and after two finalists were brought in for a public forum in January and found to be wanting, was restarted. Daniel was one of five finalists in the second phase of the search who met with the public during a forum at the Main Library last month.

This week, the library board approved her hiring unanimously.

The challenge facing Daniel is the same one facing every library director in the United States: adapting a child of the 19th century that came of age in the 20th century to the demands of the 21st. Additionally, there are challenges more specific to Mahoning County, which has different needs in the cities where there is a higher percentage of children and adults living in poverty and the more affluent suburbs.

Setting priorities

Appropriately, Daniel says her first priority is getting to know and understand the community that she will be serving.

But some things are a given. She’ll be using the experience she amassed in Oklahoma City and Houston in programming youth and family services. And she knows that libraries are an important resource for students and adults who need help in connecting with jobs.

As we have said before, there are those who believe that libraries are irrelevant in the digital age, but we’re guessing most of the people who think so haven’t been in a library for a while.

Libraries are changing with the times and opening up horizons as much today as when Andrew Carnegie began his campaign to build libraries for the common man 130 years ago.

Carlton Sears never lost sight of the need for a library to remain in touch with its roots while reaching for tomorrow. The new Jackson-Milton public library branch will embody that vision and be one of the monuments to Sears’ success here.

We have every reason to believe that Daniel will continue on a path of making the libraries of Youngstown and Mahoning County places that meet the need to expand knowledge and enjoyment and help build success — through good old-fashioned books and whatever other media the public of the future requires.