By Caitlin Brezinski

Local CEO retires with positive outlook

Dec 1, 2014 | 5:33 AM

After having spent seven years as the Wapiti Regional Library, director and CEO John Murray will be retiring starting February of 2015.

Murray said he has fond memories during his time, having always enjoyed meeting with the smaller rural library boards in some of the villages and towns the region serves. 

“Every single one I attended was very rewarding and also a little bit humbling because of all the hard work the volunteers do to keep the libraries going,” he said.  “Also the staff out there in some of the smaller towns and they do a tremendous job and often go above and beyond.”

Murray said the Regional office covers about 50 branches around the region, including the main Prince Albert John M. Cuelenaere branch, which is also the regional resource centre.  

“We cover 123,500 people altogether,” he said.  “It’s the biggest region in the southern half of the province.”

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The executive committee has hired Wapiti’s library assistant regional director, Tony Murphy, to take Murray’s place.  Murray said he has known Murphy since he began in April of 2014 and has enjoyed working with him. 

“We really enjoy getting out and meeting people in the community and listening to their issues, what’s going well and what their complaints might be and that kind of thing,” Murray said.  “I think Tony’s very well suited for that and I think people will enjoy working with him.”

Murray said Murphy would be a good fit for the position of library director and CEO, as he brings a fresh look to the running of the library.

“He brings solid management credentials to the running of the regional library,” Murray said.  “He’s worked in business, he has a good prospective on customer service, and a firm idea of management and how to achieve efficiencies and he’s up on new technology.”

Murray said he will not be implementing any changes before his retirement, but would like to see certain things continue.

“The main things that we are looking forward to is to continue our … blend of the new digital equipment and digital content,” he said.  “It’s being fairly well received and I think that will be a growing trend.”

Murray said the increase and acceptance of digital content has taken off within the last three or four years.  He said they now have thousands of digital magazines, digital ebooks and over 40 databases.

 “The residents of Wapiti are good users of these new digital access and the equipment.  We have a lot of training we have to do as well, but we’re certainly making headway and we’re really quite pleased with it,” he said. 

Although having success with those areas of the library, Murray pointed out some difficulties going forward.

“The one thing that maybe we haven’t been able to do is maintain the provincial funding at levels to run the regional office,” he said. “Local municipal grants for libraries do not go towards the regional office and so it is suffering in some ways.”

Despite some difficulties, Murray pointed out the positive impact of libraries in communities. 

“It really is a calling for librarians.  They’re incredibly committed to serving the public and to our branches,” he said.  “We’re here to serve and we think we do a pretty good job.”

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