• an incompetent library board's eight-years of micromanaging library operations (circa 1996 - June 2004)
  
• a former library director's five-year-long (September 1999 - May 2004) regime of (as she described it) "operating the library in a more business-like manner"
  
• a year-and-a-half-long (July 18, 2003 - January 19, 2005) county-wide freeze on hiring
  
• the eleven-month delay (mid-May 2004 to early April 2005) in hiring a new library director
• a still-unexplained three-year delay (April 2005 to July 2008) in the current library director's successfully recruiting for two key administrative positions...and an equally prolonged and disastrous failure to recruit a Deputy Director

¹Hooker and the Board abolished this D-Level position instead of hiring a replacement for Ms. Smith-Epps.

²Hooker and the Board abolished this D-Level position instead of hiring a replacement for Mr. Pound.

³Recruitment for this position was finally announced on March 10, 2006, but no one was ever appointed. Another attempt at recruiting for this D62-level position was announced July 18, 2008.

⁴Before Hooker was dismissed as director in May 2004, the County Manager transferred the vacant position previously occupied by Marty Messmer from the Library to the county's Dept. of Information Technology.

⁵Before Hooker was dismissed as library director in May 2004, Seung Ja Liu's position was transferred from the Library to the county's Dept. of Information Technology. Unlike Hardware Manager Marty Messmer's position--and a half-dozen other former AFPL computer support positions, including AFPL's webmaster position--Liu's office is still located in the Central Library.

⁶Hooker transferred Starck out of her position as Circulation Manager in May 2000, and abolished this crucial position instead of re-filling it. The library had no Circulation Services Manager for the next four years.

⁷After Hooker was terminated, Interim Library Director Anne Haimes reactivated the Circulation Services Manager position and began recruiting for it on August 17, 2004. Interviews were conducted in mid-September and Haimes announced Starck's (re)appointment on October 7, 2004. (In October 2007, Library Director John Szabo promoted Starck into one of the library system's two Branch Services Administrator positions, and a recruitment announcement to fill the Circulation Services Manager vacancy that Stark's promotion created was distributed shortly thereafter.)

⁸At some point after Hooker's resignation, the salary of the Finance Officer was upgraded from a C-level to a D-level salary.

⁹Recruitment was announced on March 10, 2006 for the post of Community Relations Director. The new title of the position, and the person hired for it, was announced by AFPL Library Director John Szabo in an email to library staff dated October 1, 2007. Ms. Robinson began working at AFPL in late October 2007.

¹⁰A recruiting announcement distributed in May 2005 was revised and re-distributed June 6th, and the deadline for applications was extended to June 24, 2005. On November 22, 2005, Library Director John Szabo announced the name of the successful applicant and Sherry Siclair began working at AFPL on January 11, 2006.

¹¹Interim Library Director Anne Haimes announced Ms. Flood-Partridge's appointment on September 9, 2004, approximately one year after Flood-Partridge's predecessor, Brenda Hunter, resigned.

Background: Shortly after Deputy Director Carolyn Garnes resignation was announced in September 2003, Library Director Mary Kaye Hooker had appointed Garnes' assistant Michelle Carnes as Acting Collection Development Librarian, despite the fact that Carnes had no previous Collection Development experience. Shortly after Hooker was fired in mid-May 2004, Interim Library Director Anne Haimes transferred Carnes to the previously-vacant manager position at the Fairburn Branch to serve there as "Interim Branch Manager." The recruitment announcement for the vacant Collection Management position, which Haimes had successfully gotten exempted from the county's hiring freeze, was authorized by Haimes on August 4, 2004 and interviews were conducted later that month.

¹²In late May 2004, Jackson was reassigned responsibility for managing YA services, which Hooker and the Board had removed from Jackson's duties in late 2003. Shortly thereafer, Interim Library Director Anne Haimes added the duties of Acting Central Library Administrator to Jackson's responsibilities.

At the September 22, 2004 meeting of the library board [Minutes, pages 13-14], Haimes announced that one of the proposed cuts in the library's 2005 budget was abolishing the library system's Child & Youth Services Administrator position--one of the few D-level positions remaining in the library administration after McClure's and Hooker's elimination of the other ones.

Jackson's retirement was effective December 27, 2005.

¹³After interviewing applicants who Library Director John Szabo had invited to apply for the position after Acting Central Library Administrator Doris Jackson resigned December 27, 2005, Szabo appointed Ponce Branch Manager Bill Munro as Interim Central Library Administrator, effective January 25, 2006. (Munro had managed the Ponce Branch Library for several years during the McClure/Hooker/Garnes/Earl regime; before Hooker was hired, he had served for several years as AFPL's Central Library Administrator.)

Recruitment for filling the position permanently was announced on March 10, 2006, but none of the candidates were hired.

In mid-July 2008, Szabo announced that, effective July 23, 2008, Bill Munro would be returning to his former position as the manager of the Ponce Branch, and that Szabo would soon be appointing a new Interim Central Library Administrator.

A second round of recruitment for a permanent Central Library Administrator was announced on July 18, 2008.

¹⁴Holloman's appointment as the next Interim Central Library Administrator was announced on July 24, 2008.

¹⁵When John Szabo reported to work as AFPL's Director in April 2006, Interim Library Director Anne Haimes returned to her former position as Branch Group Administrator. From April 2006 until October 2007 (when the appointment of a second Branch Services Administrator was announced), Haimes supervised all of AFPL's 32 branch managers.

¹⁶When Haimes was appointed Interim Library Director in May 2004, no one replaced her as Branch Group Administrator. Instead, Haimes announced that the other Branch Group Administrator at that time, Barbara Osborne-Harris, would manage all 32 branch libraries instead of half of them. Later Haimes transferred Emma Stanley-Harris (formerly the manager of the Northside Branch and, for a time when Mary Kaye Hooker was library director, Acting Manager of the Central Library) to the Branch Services Administration Office to "assist" Osborne-Harris.

After Osborne-Harris resigned on November 30, 2004, Haimes announced that Stanley-Tate would "oversee" (vs. manage) the library system's 32 branch libraries until Haimes could obtain from the County Manager authorization to hire a permanent Branch Group Administrator. On December 22, 2004, Haimes announced that Stanley-Tate was being transferred back to Northside to manage that branch. The same day, Haimes distributed to branch managers a list of people to call for various concerns (e.g., call the Personnel Office with questions about personnel matters.)

Upshot: Due to the combination of the county's freeze on hiring replacements for positions vacated by recent resignations, and a nine- month delay in hiring a new Library Director (complicated by the fact that Haimes was Interim Director and, until February 2005, a candidate in the search for a new director), the managers of 32 libraries--including two managers (at Northeast and at East Atlanta) brand-new to AFPL--had no official full-time supervisor(s) for four months.

¹⁷The previous Branch Group Administrator, Barbara Osborne-Harris. retired as of November 30, 2004. In mid-November 2004, Interim Library Director Anne Haimes asked the County Manager to authorize hiring for this position, which was automatically frozen the instant Osborne-Harris vacated it. No recruiting announcement for this position was ever distributed, however, until March 10, 2006.

In an email to library staff dated October 2, 2007, AFPL Library Director John Szabo announced the appointment of Mary Starck to this position. Formerly the library system's Circulation Services Manager, Ms. Starck, in addition to supervising a portion of the branch managers, also coordinates the library system's services to children and teens. (A separate position for that function had been abolished during a budget cut.)