Update: Candidate for Carson City Library Director declines offer
UPDATE: According to the Carson City Library trustees, Cyndi O declined the job offer Friday. The trustees will meet to discuss the additional candidates and will make a decision soon regarding the position.
The Carson City Library trustees determined during the board meeting Thursday evening to offer the position of library director to Cyndi O.
“Cyndi recognizes we are a unique library,” said trustee Phyllis Patton. “We are a library that is a role model in Nevada, and we’ve been recognized nationally. She knows that and would be able to get in there and start right away.”
O is currently the Director of the Nevada Library Cooperative, which takes advantage of sharing resources to make it economically feasible to do more together than one library on its own.
She was selected from among two other finalists: David Seckman, branch manager in the Pierce County Library System in Graham, Wash.; and Joe Schweiss, library director in Bullitt County, Ken.
Schweiss was selected as the alternate if O declined the position.
O will replace Sena Loyd, who resigned the post in February to take a job in the private sector. Loyd had served in the position since January 2014.
Trustee Amanda Long said she attributed much of the library’s success to Loyd’s advocacy in the community. She anticipated O will have a similar presence.
“That was one of the key things I was looking at,” Long said. “She knows the community. That’s super important for the continuation of the path the library is on right now.”
The Carson City Library hosted a meet and greet last week for the community to meet the finalists and ask questions.
“The questions the community had for the candidates were exceedingly good,” said Jeremy Hays, president of the Carson City Library Board of Trustees. “I was surprised at the level they were asking questions. It kind of turned into a secondary interview almost, and the finalists all handled themselves exceptionally.”
O also worked as library director at Humboldt County Library in Nevada and was the library director of the Guthrie Public Library in Oklahoma for almost eight years.
Upon leaving the Air Force, O started working for the Metropolitan Library System in Oklahoma and fell in love with libraries and library work.
She earned her master’s degree in library and information studies from the University of Oklahoma.
Trustees used a metric system to rank with candidates with O receiving 191 points; David Seckman,184.5 points; and Joe Schweiss, 184 points.
None of the candidates attended Thursday’s meeting.