The following people are running for two three-year Board of Trustees positions at the Derry Public Library in the March 8 election:
Joan Crimlisk – Crimlisk, 59 and an incumbent, has lived in Derry for 12 years and works in health care as a financial analyst. She is completing her second term as a trustee for the library.
Staffing is a challenge in working with library budgets, Crimlisk said, adding, “We are well-staffed, but there’s always turnover.” Maintenance of the building is an ongoing responsibility, she said, and keeping up the collection is also a challenge, including discerning what materials are available in paper and what is better accessed electronically. Trustees and staff keep the material current by working with a library consortium and the state library, she said.
Elizabeth Greenberg – Greenberg, 64, has lived in town for two years. She is a social worker and mental health therapist. Her run for library trustee is her first try at elected office, and she has been preparing herself by serving as an alternate on the board.
Greenberg said a good library is the key to the success and well-being of a community. She wants to have a stronger voice and say in how the Derry Library functions. As far as budgets go, she said, “It’s important to be fiscally responsible. It’s a real balancing act.”
Elizabeth Ives – Ives, current chair and incumbent, no age given, has lived in Derry since 1971 and made her career in professional theater. She served briefly as a trustee in the 1990s, took time off and came back because, “second to the schools, it’s the most important resource in town.”
Ives, who has been through several budgets with the Derry Library, admits that it is hard work. “We try to identify what this community wants and the best way to provide it,” she said. “We look at what’s available statewide.” Unfortunately, as town budgets have shrunk, so have state budgets, Ives said. But there are 12 libraries in Derry’s consortium, and they freely share materials.
The library works with the Town of Derry to get a bulk price on the leasing of computers, she said. It’s a three-year lease because, Ives said, “Technology changes so quickly.”
Maintenance is a constant factor, Ives said. “We will need a roof in the next few years, and that will come out of the Capital Improvement Plan,” she said.
But it’s where Ives wants to spend her volunteer hours, noting, “One of my favorite T-shirts says, “If you Google a question, you get 100,000 answers. If you ask a librarian, you get the correct one.”
