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Departing library leader lists achievements
YOUNGSTOWN
Opening and improving library buildings and making library service more mobile, technology-oriented and user-friendly have been the highlights of Heidi Daniel’s five years as executive director of the public library system here.
In mid-July, she’ll leave here to move to the Maryland area to take on much larger responsibilities as president and chief executive officer of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, which is the public-library system of Baltimore.
She came here in July 2012 from the Houston public-library system, where she had been a district supervisor overseeing 16 neighborhood libraries.
Daniel, 41, whose annual salary here is $114,240, cites numerous accomplishments as executive director of the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County.
Among them are the opening of the newly constructed Tri-Lakes branch serving the North Jackson and Lake Milton areas and of the newly built Canfield branch.
Daniel also oversaw the planning and fund-raising for the Michael Kusalaba Branch, which is under construction on Youngstown’s West Side and scheduled to open early next year.
Also completed under her leadership was the renovation of the 25-year-old Boardman branch.
Daniel, who was named Ohio Librarian of the Year in 2015, also cites her efforts to extend library service beyond the walls of library buildings, including her initiation of the Pop-Up Library, which travels to schools and community activity centers, and of the circulation of mobile Wi-Fi hot spots.
She also inaugurated fine-free library cards tailored to children and teenagers and an experimental library in the lobby of the OH WOW! children’s museum in downtown Youngstown.
“One of my core beliefs is that the library needs to be where people are,” she explained.
Daniel said she believes in making library service flexible and “finding creative ways to move the library into the community, as opposed to just being in our buildings and waiting for people to come to us.”
Fine-free library cards “remove barriers of access to vulnerable populations,” she added.
“We’ve become a community-responsive organization that provides incredibly good service in a fiscally responsible way with outstanding facilities and stellar staff,” Daniel said of the Mahoning County public library system.
“I try to instill in people the sense of passion for public libraries that I have,” she added.
Janet Loew, communications and public-relations director for the public library system here, describes Daniel as a good listener who is “forward-thinking,” “results-oriented,” enthusiastic and energetic.
“She looks at the trends and tries to bring about the change in our library system that would accommodate the changes in what people need and want in their libraries,” Loew observed.
Daniel, who lives in Canfield with her husband, David Anderson, and children, Kate, 7, and Jack, 9, said she has “mixed emotions” about her “bittersweet” decision to leave here.
“It’s such a great community. It’s so easy to live here. The people are welcoming and genuine,” she observed.
However, she added: “I’m very excited about my new challenge in moving forward with a lot of the things that need to happen in Baltimore.”
In making her transition to leading the Baltimore library system, Daniel will go from directing the main library and 13 branches here, with 190 employees and a $15.5 million annual operating budget, to leading a central library and 21 branches in Baltimore, with 442 employees and a $40 million annual operating budget.
In Baltimore, Daniel will succeed Carla Hayden, who left the Baltimore directorship she had occupied since 1993 to become the nation’s 14th Librarian of Congress in Washington, D.C., last year.
Daniel, who will earn $180,000 a year in Baltimore, will oversee a $115 million renovation of Baltimore’s 1933-vintage central library to modernize it for the digital age.
Daniel will serve “at will” for no specific term in her new job, according to her contract, a Baltimore library spokeswoman said.
Daniel said challenges facing her successor here will be the renovation of main library, whose cost has been estimated at about $15 million, achievement of the planned consolidation of the Brownlee Woods, Struthers and Campbell branches, and keeping the library system current with emerging electronic technologies.
“The Mahoning Valley has benefited from everything she’s brought to us here, so we’re proud of her, and we wish her well, but we’re sad to see her leave,” Loew said.