La Conner isn't only rural library that struggles to meet state certification

When the La Conner ­Swinomish Library Board of Directors named Jean Markert the library’s director in 2022, it did so despite Markert’s lack of a library science degree and required state certification.

La Conner is not alone in operating a library without a trained librarian.

“Unfortunately, it is not unusual for rural libraries in ­Washington (and nationwide) to have library staff or library directors who are not certified librarians. Rural areas are notoriously challenged to recruit and retain certified librarians,” Washington Library Association Director Brianna Hoffman wrote in an email.

Markert will complete her library science master’s degree this fall. She will get a librarian’s certificate from the Washington State Librarian, putting the library district in compliance with a statute requiring full-time staff to hold a librarian’s certificate.

State Librarian Sara Jones was notified when Markert became permanent library director after the library board of trustees terminated Jared Fair in August 2022. Jones told the Weekly News that her department “advised the La Conner Library of the legal requirement.”

She echoed Hoffman’s assessment in an email: “It is a not uncommon practice in our profession for a person to be selected as a library director without the degree and then required as a condition of continued employment to complete a master’s degree in library and information science.”

State law requires librarians to have “a knowledge of information resources and library/information service delivery equivalent to that required for graduation from an accredited library education program.”

Hoffman noted that library study programs may offer a management track without elaborating if that provides an overview in advising governmental boards to include the state’s Open Public Meetings Act or financial policy oversight, areas the Washington State Auditor’s Office found the library district to be in ­noncompliance.

Jones wrote that a management course is a requirement with a MLIS degree. Open meeting laws and financial management would be addressed in a cursory way. A separate course on financial management is part of the curriculum.