Rutgers Librarian Chosen for UCI Post : Education: Joanne Euster was top candidate to take over Irvine’s troubled library system. She has accepted pending regents’ approval.

The head of the library system at Rutgers University in New Jersey has been chosen to take over the troubled UC Irvine library, which had been under scrutiny over allegations of poor management, bias and racism.

Joanne R. Euster, an internationally known leader in library science who took over a divided and demoralized Rutgers library system in 1986, said Thursday that she has accepted the UCI post pending approval of the University of California Board of Regents.

Euster, 56, said she was aware of the past problems at UCI and of steps taken to correct many of them. But if more healing is necessary, she said, “then we’ll do it.”

S. William Wong, head of UCI’s East Asian library collection, said Euster was the top candidate among four finalists for the job.

“I’m very pleased that she has accepted the job,” said Wong, who served on the eight-member search committee. “I was worried that because of the publicity about our problems here, we would have a hard time attracting good people. I’m very proud to say we got our first choice.”

Added library staffer Sylvester Klinicke, president of the UCI chapter of the American Federation of Teachers: “She seems to be just the right person at the right time here.”

If approved by the regents at their May 14 meeting, Euster will take over July 1 from acting librarian John L. King, a professor of information systems and computer science.

King was appointed last fall after former UCI Librarian Calvin Boyer resigned in the wake of three separate inquiries examining allegations of bias in promotion and hiring and of racism toward minority employees and patrons. While those charges attracted the widest attention, employees said the three studies concluded that the library’s main problem stemmed from a lack of decisive leadership.

Boyer, now a senior librarian at UCI, has been assigned the task of building UCI’s collection in the field of critical theory to one of world-class stature, King said.

When she met with library employees recently, Euster emphasized that she would not hesitate to make tough, perhaps unpopular decisions when needed. But she described her management style as collaborative.

“I tend to work through and with people, rather than issuing orders,” Euster said in a telephone interview from Rutgers’ New Brunswick campus. “I want to see the right things happen, but I’m under no illusions that I can make anything happen myself. It takes everybody working together.”

At Rutgers, Euster supervises about 400 employees plus students at the university’s 18 libraries, which stretch over three campuses. UCI has only about 190 librarians and career staff, about 250 student workers, and only five branches, four on campus and one at the medical center in Orange.

Her proposed UCI salary of about $115,000 a year is roughly the same as at Rutgers. Because of a real estate slump in New Jersey, she said she and her husband, Stephen Gerhardt, expect to lose money on the sale of their home in Somerset.

So why move to UCI?

“Because its a young and growing institution, and I think it’s a dynamic place,” Euster said.