Letters to the editor
Published 1:30 am Monday, March 23, 2026
To the Timberland Regional Library Board of Trustees:
My name is Brooke Pederson and I worked as the Amanda Park library manager from 2010-2013. I married a long-time resident of Quinault and we are part of the greater Quinault community. I would like to make a few observations as a career librarian about the current culture of employment at Timberland Regional Library (TRL).
After receiving my Master of Library and Information Science from the UW iSchool in 2010, I was passionate about rural library service and was thrilled to be hired as the library manager of the Amanda Park Timberland Library. Talk about rural. I learned a lot about being the library in a small community, about outreach and advocacy for a culture of lifelong learning. Sally Nash was on my hiring committee and taught me one of the greatest library management lessons I’ve ever learned: err on the side of access. Making decisions to enable information access, rather than restrict it, is at the heart of library service.
In 2014, I accepted a job as library director of the Upper Skagit Library District in Concrete. I learned (crash course) about finance management, human resources, facilities management, and public relations. I learned about the bigger picture of library politics in Washington, property taxes, timber funds, and how the roles of the Board of Trustees and library director differ. Through it all, “err on the side of access” helped inform our service model and ultimately led us to success with a city annexation to the library district and an increased outreach presence to the farther flung reaches of the district.
With a whole new level of understanding and appreciation for library administration, I decided to step back from directorship and took a job with the Whatcom County Library System (WCLS) as the Branch Manager for the Lummi Island Library. From 2019 to 2024, I reconnected with front-line service and the joys and challenges of, again, being the library in a small community. During the COVID pandemic, in addition to erring on the side of access, I learned a new lesson from WCLS administration: pivoting with change, while placing people first, is best practice. During COVID, connection with each other, staff and patrons alike, was immensely important. This practice brought the library district a long way towards making itself invaluable to the communities it served. So invaluable that their levy lid-lift passed last year.
My husband and I made a necessary financial decision to move back to Quinault in 2024. I was sad to leave my island librarian job but was happy to see a Grays Harbor library substitute position open with TRL. I applied and was thankful to keep my hand in library work. However, while working in many of the Grays Harbor libraries, these are some of the patterns I observed while subbing over the last two years:
Staff being told to do something one way on this day, then another way on another day, and being “written up” for doing it wrong
Staff working in fear that anything they do or say could be used against them
Coworkers telling me they’ve lost their joy/passion for library work because their hands have been slapped too many times; it’s “not worth it” to be creative or go above and beyond in their work
Coworkers feeling that their jobs (and libraries) are on the chopping block, and have been, for the past eight years; coworkers expressing exhaustion by lack of support
Staff feeling their feedback is not welcome and that there will be retaliation against them for speaking out about anything, no matter how big or small the issue
Friends groups feeling stymied and confused about how to help their libraries
Staff expecting policy changes to further restrict their work and patron services
Staff being expected to pay more attention to their work processes than the patrons standing in front of them
Staff expressing frustration that not once in the last month with the budget concerns and layoffs imminent, have administration expressed any sort of apology
What these patterns reveal to me is a toxic culture of employment at TRL. A toxic culture that does not value its employees, and by extension, its patrons and their access to excellent library service. “Err on the side of access,” and “pivot with change, while placing people first,” as service models are so far out the window you can’t see them anymore.
The message I’m receiving from TRL’s current decisions, and from the pattern of toxic employment practices I’ve witnessed over the past two years, is that rural library service is expendable; librarians are expendable; front-line service is expendable; access is expendable. Rather, backline administration and automation are the future of libraries. This does not reflect well on libraries in general, let alone TRL in specific.
As a librarian who has had the privilege of working in some spectacular, rural communities, and for some spectacular, rural library districts (including TRL), I’ve experienced firsthand the importance of basic library services for these communities as well as what solid support feels like to provide these services. Far from basic, however, the richness and quality of life that library services and the librarians being the library bring to their communities is invaluable.
Librarians are problem solvers; TRL is laying off their best problem solvers. TRL is laying off their best defense for the future of libraries in our communities as places that bring people together. [A staff-less library is a self-fulfilling prophecy for a patron-less library.] I have not seen any evidence, as a staff member or patron, that current TRL administration is seeking to act in good faith with public trust; what is the plan? I vote no confidence in current library administrators.
Err on the side of access. Pivot with change, while placing people first.
Brooke Pederson
Quinault
Retired TRL board members claim misfeasance
We are deeply concerned about Timberland Regional Library (TRL). This organization is largely funded by taxes paid by the citizens of Grays Harbor, Pacific, Mason, Lewis and Thurston counties. As such, TRL is answerable to the public for the way this tax revenue is spent.
In January, the library administration was shocked by a $3.8 million shortfall. How did this happen? Staff reorganizations that were supposed to save money, instead cost more than expected. Multiple cars were purchased. Is an administration that did not see this severe shortfall coming, qualified to manage a $30 million budget?
TRL administration could have taken serious cost-cutting measures over the past several years. Instead, they pushed to continue with elaborate and expensive library “refreshes,” and pay raises were repeatedly given to top level staff. As recently as the beginning of January, new employees were hired, only to be let go two weeks later. This underscores the fact that this administration did not anticipate this large shortfall.
The administration’s answer to this crisis is to issue layoff notices to many front-line staff who are the heart and soul of this district. This severe reduction in staff may eventually result in closed branches.
The TRL Board of Trustees should serve the public, not the administration. It is the job of the trustees to question financial decisions, support all library staff, approve the budget, and make policy. The Board should not exist to rubber stamp whatever is put in front of them.
Installing extended access systems, then reducing or eliminating staff and possibly closing branch libraries seems to be the plan for TRL, while other library systems in Washington are operating within similar budget constraints without resorting to these measures.
Therefore, we are calling for an administrative performance audit to identify misfeasance. We call for an independent investigation into how TRL makes financial decisions and expenditures. In the interim, and most urgently, we call for a hold on any layoffs. The administrators who have ineptly spent their way into this dire situation must be held accountable by the TRL Board of Trustees.
Retired Timberland Regional Library trustees Bob Hall, Corby Varness, Brian Zylstra, Edna Fund, Brenda Hirschi, Gene Weaver, Judy Weaver and Nicolette Oliver
