“I continually find myself arguing on the side of looking at things positively. I am more than a little ‘Pollyanna-ish’ as my staff can tell you. And I am sure that it can get annoying. But I can’t stop, not even when people tell me I have rose-colored glasses. In fact, when I was interviewing someone for a position here at the library they told me that I was naive to see libraries as such a positive force. They did not get the job.

I always think there is a solution hidden somewhere, a possibility unexplored and potential to create something. Here in Wisconsin, our library systems are facing what could be a potentially horrific cut in their budgets depending on what the state budget does. While others want to focus on the cuts that must be made and potential negative results to libraries, I advocate for looking beyond the dark and dour.

Yes, I know, it’s a budget cut. It’s bad. It is not without costs. It will have negative impacts. I’m a public library director, I’ve seen it before and lived to tell the tale. I can’t change the fact that there will be cuts, but I can decide how I will face them.

For me, this is the moment to look forward, to see what efficiencies can be made to carry us onward. This is the moment to take chances and make changes that will save money. This is the moment to try, to risk, to extend ourselves, not to pull inside your shell to safety. This is when we talk to everyone as a team (system staff, member libraries, other libraries, other systems), when we gather ourselves together to work out the problem. This is that moment. And if we approach it that way, our decisions can carry us not only through this dark year but onward.

It is too easy to get caught in the darkness of the possible bleak future. I ask that we look beyond that, or at the very least build ourselves a lamp to light the way and hold it high together.

If we can’t hold it together, I will try to hold the light myself and shout to the wind about possibilities, potential and opportunity. But I would much rather do it together.”

(Via *Dumb Little Man* – Sites and Soundbytes.)

Text of all the inaugural addresses