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Beleaguered New Jersey Librarian ResignsHasbrouck Heights (N.J.) Public Library Director Michele Reutty submitted her resignation to the library board finance committee October 2, some six months after local officials threatened disciplinary action because she refused to release patron records to law enforcement officers until she received a subpoena as mandated by state law. The information that police eventually received led to the identification of a man suspected of sexually threatening a child.Reutty, who is president-elect of the New Jersey Library Association, announced her departure after several weeks of negotiation between her attorney and trustees over whether she would be suspended without pay for up to a month. She has accepted the directorship of the Oakland (N.J.) Public Library, and will begin serving there December 4. Reutty offered to remain on the job in Hasbrouck Heights until October 31 and help to recruit and train her successor only if officials dropped all charges against her within 24 hours and agreed to pay her legal fees. However, Borough Administrator Michael Kronyak said in the October 5 Bergen Record that “her resignation was accepted immediately” because Reutty “did not give us a reasonable time to review her conditions.” “I put my heart and soul into that library for 17 years, and to be treated so shabbily just broke my heart,” Reutty told the newspaper. An October 6 editorial backed her “principled stand,” noting that “if Reutty hadn’t insisted on a proper subpoena, police might have obtained the library records illegally [which] could have been grounds for a lawsuit or for the police case getting thrown out of court.” Assistant Library Director Mimi Hui has been appointed acting director during the search for Reutty’s successor. Posted October 13, 2006. |
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