“A good relationship with local civil government is a key factor to success,” believes Leslie Straus, library awards director for the Gerald M. Kline Family Foundation. “In my years of reviewing submissions for the Jerry Kline Community Impact Prize, our winners have uniformly seemed to recognize this.”
During “Priority One: Local Government Engagement” at the American Library Association’s (ALA) 2025 Annual Conference and Exhibition in Philadelphia on June 29, Straus led a conversation with two library directors whose systems had won the Jerry Kline Community Impact Prize and their local mayors about how to build a strong and trusting working relationship between library administration and local government.
While most library directors and civic leaders step into preexisting relationships between the city or town and the local library, individual relationships still require care. Dara Schmidt, director of the Cedar Rapids (Iowa) Public Library (CRPL), said she got off to a shaky start with the city’s mayor, Tiffany O’Donnell. After an introductory library tour, Schmidt said to O’Donnell, “How do you feel about this whole book banning thing? Is this going to be a hard relationship or an easy relationship?” She realized almost immediately that bluntness might not be the most productive approach with someone new. O’Donnell, for her part, laughed it off, and appreciated the direct communication. “If we can start there, we can go anywhere together,” Schmidt said during the ALA panel.
Lance Werner, executive director of Kent (Mich.) District Library (KDL), oversees branches in multiple municipalities and has found a steadfast partner in Gary Carey Jr, mayor of Walker, Michigan. “It’s not always donuts and lattes,” he said, but the library has had a strong relationship with each of the town’s previous mayors as well. He attributes that to effective storytelling and honest dealing. “Tell a true story and be your authentic self, you’ll find commonality,” he said.
“Make sure your city leadership understands what an asset the library can be, because it’s not their job to figure that out,” said Schmidt. In Cedar Rapids, the library was ready to provide community support in a part of the city that was hard hit by natural disaster. At KDL, regional managers are involved in city meetings each week, Werner said. “Regular contact develops familiarity with what’s going on with the library and it helps with the story.”
It’s important to maintain a good relationship with all municipalities in a system, Werner warned. “If you get a bad rap in one municipality, that can spread,” he said. “Everybody talks.” When Werner has been challenged on diversity, equity, and inclusion, he has framed those efforts as “good business”—a way to know the people in your community. “When you put things into those terms, you get around to commonality,” he said. Making an effort to connect bolsters your credibility. It helps that Mayor Carey is a vocal supporter. “Our community knows that Lance and I are 100% aligned,” Carey said. “We’ll listen and have a discussion, but the [library] policy is the policy.”
Both KDL and CRPL are in the process of building new library facilities, and municipal support has been indispensable. Schmidt found that the Cedar Rapids business community was particularly hesitant about the amount of money that would be needed. In response, O’Donnell hosted a meeting in her home to help promote the new CRPL branch. “A lot of times people are going to listen to your mayor more than they’re going to listen to the library director on a lot of issues,” said Schmidt. “If you really want to grow stuff you’ve got to have coalition building,” O’Donnell stressed. “[A library director doesn’t] have to be the one out there who wants the spotlight, but you might have to be the smart one who knows all about it.”
As mayors, Cary and O’Donnell would prefer to keep their local libraries out of the political spotlight. “We have to insulate the library from that,” Carey said. “They don’t need to be in that boxing ring going at it politically.” O’Donnell agreed: “As a city, it’s a goal to leave Dara and her people alone.” She also cautions library leaders against purposely stepping into the political ring. “With all that’s been happening you could have somebody who’s going to put a stake in the ground and call the newspaper,” she said. “While you may want to do that, it’s not strategic and it’s not helpful, especially for those of us who are working behind the scenes.”
In the end, an honest working relationship means that libraries and municipal leaders can rely on each other, even when they disagree. “Even the people who aren’t wild about the library,” Werner said, “in their heart, they know if they were to ask us to do something, we’d try to do it.”
“Your city needs you as much as you need your city,” O’Donnell added.
