City chooses new library system director

After a seven-month, nationwide search, Burbank has selected a new director to lead its library system — Elizabeth Goldman, a second-generation librarian who said her mother, a librarian in her hometown in New Mexico, was a good “salesperson for the job” and remains enthusiastic about the work.

What attracted Goldman, a former newspaper reporter, was the role libraries play in the democratic process of providing people of all ages and walks of life access to information.

She went into the family business, so to speak, “knowing that I can go to work and be adding some good into the world,” she said in an interview this week.

“I think libraries are very, very powerful,” she added. “The need for access to information is universal and won’t ever go away.”

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The library services manager for the Pasadena Public Library and former chief executive and chief librarian of the Perth and District Union Public Library in Ontario, Canada, will step up to helm Burbank’s libraries in the coming weeks. She doesn’t have an official start date yet.

Goldman replaces Sharon Cohen, who retired in August.

The search for the head of the library department drew many strong candidates, outgoing City Manager Mark Scott said in a statement announcing Goldman’s selection last week.

“Elizabeth Goldman was the most impressive candidate among an outstanding field,” Scott said. “She is committed to the Burbank Public Library’s strong brand and will lead the team capably into the future.”

She holds a master’s of science in information from the University of Michigan and has more than a decade of library experience. She earned a bachelor’s in American History from Stanford University.

Goldman will oversee the Burbank system’s three branches and a $6.4 million budget.

She said the system is “just the right size for me,” and a place where she will be able to have a more hands-on approach than in a larger library. She sees Burbank as a community that supports its library, which was an important consideration for her, and as a distinct city with “a lot of potential.”

One area of potential that attracted her, she said, was the opportunity to look at how libraries will need to evolve to continue to meet the public’s need for information and civic engagement.

In particular, the opportunity to guide plans for a new Burbank central library to serve the community’s changing needs for the next 50 years as the “library of the future.”

Most libraries, including Burbank’s, are designed around a model of storing books and providing quiet reading environments, she said, but modern libraries serve more diverse purposes, such as places for meetings and collaboration, access to technology and community-building.

It’s been a “lifelong dream to rebuild a central library,” she said. Burbank officials have discussed the need for a new central library, but they face challenges such as finding an appropriate property and funding.

During a City Council discussion of its priorities in August, a few council members identified the new central library as an important project. However, Councilman David Gordon said, “even in our best wishes and dreams … it would be a while” before the project could be undertaken.

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Chad Garland, chad.garland@latimes.com

Twitter: @chadgarland