Spokane city libraries name next director

Pat Partovi, a Spokane Public Library manager for 11 years, has been named the city’s new library director after becoming interim director last August.

Partovi replaces Jan Sanders, who resigned in August to take a job in Southern California.

Partovi won the appointment from the Spokane Library Board of Trustees in a unanimous vote last week.

“I applaud the decision of the library board,” said acting Mayor Dennis Hession in a news release issued Thursday. “Pat has the experience and initiative that will make our outstanding library system even better.”

Board Chairman Rick White said, “She has great rapport with the staff and public alike. Couple that with her experience and commitment to service, and she is the best person for the job.”

Partovi said libraries can make a difference in people’s lives by promoting the love for reading.

One of her first jobs as director will be hiring new staff and revising work schedules so that the city’s five neighborhood branches can be open five days a week, an increase from shortened schedules caused by budget cuts in 2005. The increased hours are expected to begin in early February, after new employees are hired and trained.

The South Side and Shadle branches will offer full library services Mondays through Fridays, an increase from their current three-day-a-week schedules. Indian Trail, East Side and Hillyard branches will be open for half-days, five days a week, and will be staffed by part-time clerical workers, not trained librarians. Those three smaller branches had been opened only two days a week this year.

The increased hours were made possible by recent voter approval of a property tax increase and City Council approval of an increase in the tax on city-owned utilities.

Partovi joined Spokane’s library system as downtown library manager in 1994. In 2002, she became neighborhood services manager, and in early 2005, she moved to the job of deputy director for public services.

A native of Carlsbad, Calif., Partovi earned a master’s degree in library and information science from the University of California, Fullerton, in 1977. Her bachelor’s degree is in Spanish literature. She has worked in library service for 28 years and had been regional supervisor for San Bernardino County Library prior to her arrival in Spokane.