In a break from precedent, the Great Neck Library Board of Trustees decided to retain Marietta DiCamillo as the board’s president for a third year while the Main Branch library project is being completed.
DiCamillo, along with the other board members, will serve in their present capacities throughout the year, the board decided at its reorganization meeting Wednesday.
Chris Johnson, interim library director for the Great Neck Library, said the standard library policy is to not have a trustee serve in the same office for more than two consecutive years.
Johnson said the library has guidelines that say a third term can be allowed to should there be certain circumstances, which she said the building project counts as. She said trustee terms are for four years, but that the offices get reconfigured every year.
“We have a policy change that was specifically extended through the construction,” DiCamillo said. “It’s just for another year term. I have three more years [on the board] and I plan to serve out the rest of the three years.”
Johnson said she believes this is the first time this has happened in the library’s history.
The Main Branch, located at 159 Bayview Ave.,will be closed for a year so repairs can be made to the building. The repairs will be funded by a $10.4 million bond approved by the voters in the Great Neck library system.
The three branches have changed their hours to accommodate for the closing of the Main Branch. Station Branch, located at 26 Great Neck Road, and Parkville Branch, located at 10 Campbell Street, is open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday, Tuesday and Friday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday.
Lakeville Branch, located at 475 Great Neck Road, is open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday and will be closed Sundays.
At the meeting, Robert Schaufeld officially took the place of Janet Nina Eshagoff on the board, making it the only change in the board’s structure. Eshagoff did not run for reelection.
Eshagoff was the board’s president during the failed effort to get a $20.8 million plan to revamp the Main Branch approved by voters. During the failed effort, Eshagoff’s son, Great Neck North High School alumnus Sam Eshagoff, gained national attention for running a SAT cheating ring.
DiCamillo said Eshagoff will be missed, and that Schaufeld will be a good new addition.
“Janet has done a phenomenal job with everything she has touched over past eight years,” DiCamillo said. “We wish her lots of luck.”
Besides the renovations to the Main Branch, DiCamilo said she is looking forward to creating three new committees to help modernize the library. These committees will help redesign the library’s website, change some of the library’s programming and reconfigure the library personnel.
“We’ll have this brand new library but we’re still operating under an old manner,” DiCamillo said. “We need a new structure.”
The reconfiguring of the departments, DiCamillo said, would include having a social media department.
