The Board of Library Trustees is poised to hire Heidi Dolamore as the new director of the library at their Wednesday meeting, a move they hope will start to quell more than a year of turmoil. Dolamore is currently the assistant director of the San Jose Library, a position she has held since January 2015. […]
Jeff Scott
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Berkeley planning chief to leave for Contra Costa County
Update, Feb. 26, 10:11 a.m. The city manager’s office sent the following notice to city officials at 10:05 a.m. “It is with sadness that I inform you that Eric Angstadt has submitted his resignation as Planning Director effective March 25, 2016 to become the Chief Assistant County Administrator for Contra Costa County. Eric came to Berkeley in […]
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Library to hire former Albany city manager for top job
The Berkeley Board of Library Trustees plans to hire Beth Pollard, an administrator with deep roots in the East Bay, as the new interim library director. The decision will be confirmed at a meeting today. Pollard served as Berkeley’s interim deputy city manager from Sept. 2014 to February of this year. Prior to that, she […]
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Number of books weeded from library system under dispute
The new acting interim director of the Berkeley Public Library pledged Wednesday night to reinstate some of the input and authority that librarians and staff lost under former Director Jeff Scott — but one of her staff members also suggested that the total number of items weeded out under Scott’s authority may have been closer to […]
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Berkeley library director Jeff Scott was not a ‘good fit’
Berkeley Library Director Jeff Scott was not forced out of his job but decided to resign after a conversation with Abigail Franklin, the chair of the Board of Library Directors, in which they both agreed he was not a “good fit” for the position, according to Franklin. Franklin went to see Scott, 38, on the morning […]
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Breaking: Jeff Scott resigns as Berkeley library director
The Berkeley Public Library announced Monday that Jeff Scott has officially resigned from his position as director of library services. The move comes just 10 months after Scott took the position, in November 2014. The resignation is effective Sept. 8. Scott’s abrupt departure comes in the wake of a controversy over the weeding of books at Berkeley’s central […]
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Performance of Berkeley’s library director under fire at meeting of library trustees
More than 40 people expressed concern about the actions of the Berkeley Library director at a specially called meeting Wednesday night of the Board of Library Trustees. Those who spoke publicly – who were supported by 40 observers – not only complained about the aggressive book weeding policy put forward by Jeff Scott, the director, […]
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Berkeley library director admits vast discrepancies in numbers of weeded books
Over 39,000 items have been weeded from Berkeley Public Library this year, far more than the couple of thousand previously cited by Library Director Jeff Scott. The 39,000 items include 13,850 deleted last copies of books. According to Scott, however, the 39,000 items is comparable to the average weeded over the last two years. “I had […]
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Obscure and popular books part of Berkeley library weeding process
When librarians from the Berkeley Public Library were examining books that had not been checked out for three years to determine which ones to keep and which to discard, they reviewed “The Housefly: Its Natural History, Medical Importance, and Control,” written by Luther S. West in 1951. It was retained. So was “A Guide to […]
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Protesters rally, check out books to make clear concerns over weeding at Berkeley Central Library
By Francesca Paris A crowd of around 30 people gathered at the front of the Central Branch of the Berkeley Public Library today to protest new procedures for weeding books from the library’s collection. The protesters believe the process, ordered by Library Director Jeff Scott, is being carried out irresponsibly. Members of the group carried signs reading […]
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Library fans voice concerns over weeding of books
An orchestrated clearing out of books at the Berkeley Central Library, ordered by the library’s director, Jeff Scott, has sounded alarm-bells for some current and former librarians, as well as community members. Their concerns, which they have shared with the city’s mayor as well as the Board of Library Trustees, center on who is doing the weeding of books — […]
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After outcry, library board votes to change South Branch name to include civil-rights leader
The Berkeley Board of Library Trustees (BOLT) Thursday night voted to recommend to the City Council that the South Branch of the library be renamed to include the name of Tarea Hall Pittman (1903-1991), a long-time South Berkeley resident and civil-rights leader. The 4-1 vote overturned a previous April 22 vote by the board that prevented the library from including […]