There’s new leadership at the Clark County Public Library.
Karlos Marshall will start as its new director on Sept. 28. WYSO’s Mike Frazier spoke with him about what drew him to the role and his goals for the job.
This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
Karlos Marshall: Literacy has always been an extremely big part of my life. I'm also born and raised in Springfield, the Champion City, Rose City, proud byproduct of the Springfield City School District, attended Wittenberg University. And then over the last five years, I've been able to be an executive at the Dayton Metro Library, initially serving as the chief diversity officer, now, as a director of community impact and innovation, which includes overseeing the Center for Community Impact and Innovation. It's really a great opportunity for me to return home and to lead an anchor civic institution.
"You cannot have a vibrant community — much less a downtown or even a neighborhood — without strong libraries And that's precisely what we have here in Clark County."
Mike Frazier: What are your plans for the Clark County Library System?
Marshall: At some point in 2027, we’ll be launching a campaign to have a robust strategic planning process to leverage the unique assets and gifts and talents that we already have in our library system, but also cultivating a strategy that puts our ears and our eyes towards the future and filling those critical community gaps, creating partnerships and again meeting the needs of the people just having robust partnerships access to information connections to community resources. But also, public libraries in the 21st century have also become known as cultural hubs. And obviously, books and literature and online databases will always be core and quintessential to things that libraries do.
Mike Frazier: For those who don't know, how is the Clark County Library funded?
Marshall: The Clark County Public Library is funded by two primary sources. State funding through appropriations from the state legislature, commonly still referred to as the Public Library Fund. And then, we also have a local tax levy that was passed a number of years ago. That's a permanent levy. So those are the primary ways in which we're funded.
Mike Frazier: Are there any plans for any capital improvements in the library system?
Marshall: It's great that you just asked, that because the library has actually undergone a number of capital improvement projects in recent memories, including renovating portions of the Main Library. But we have also brought on two new libraries here in recent memory. Our Tuttle Branch, which is out there on the east side of our community, by the Walmart and also by a new housing development, making sure that we're meeting the needs as our community continues to grow and expand and bringing new home ownership opportunities online. And then we also have our Northridge branch, which is outside of the city limits. But one of the communities within our service area. That was a building project that was built from the ground up.
Mike Frazier: Are there any challenges in today's political climate to be part of a library system?
Marshall: There certainly are challenges in today's current climate, not only politically, but even more so financially. We've seen in the last couple of years for this current budget cycle in which public libraries received a cut from the Public Library Fund from the state legislature, in which the Public Library Fund historically for years and for generations upon generations have been able to also grow with the annual tax revenue receipts and sales tax across the state. But the state legislature made a determination to make that a line item. And that the money that we receive in is also now a fixed cost. A lot of libraries across the state lost a lot of money and CCPL was certainly not exempt from that. So that's the biggest challenges.
Obviously there's also a lot of conversations around property taxes andnd things of that nature, obviously there were attempts by certain groups to eliminate property taxes altogether across the state, albeit unsuccessfully, at least at this particular point and juncture.
So that's what I mentioned when I said earlier, we really have to be steadfast and diligent in operating at the intersections of mission and margin. But across all data metrics, what we know is that the Ohio public library system is the strongest library system in the entire country. So it's really, really critical that all of our library lovers and advocates and supporters and partners continue to support libraries to ensure that we can be sustainable moving forward because libraries are critical public infrastructure to our society.
You cannot have a vibrant community — much less a downtown or even a neighborhood — without strong libraries And that's precisely what we have here in Clark County.
