The ImagineIF Library Board of Trustees is leaning toward giving the system’s interim director the job permanently and could vote to that end as soon as its Feb. 22 meeting.

Office Administrator Teri Dugan has worked as ImagineIF’s interim director since Ashley Cummins left the post in October. She’s been with the library for more than a decade, and Trustee Doug Adams said the staff is supportive of her taking over the role full time. 

“The staff is solidly behind her from everything that we've heard … There was contention last time, whether that was fair or not, there was contention,” Adams said, referring to the backlash following the hiring of Cummins. “So, we didn’t see a need to invite attention when we're pleased with the way everything is going.”

Dugan declined to comment when asked if she would accept the full-time director’s position. 

He said trustees didn’t consider any other applicants for the position because the last director’s search generated ire toward the library and Cummins. Her hiring caused the library to lose state accreditation, or about $30,000 in funding, because she lacked a master’s degree. 

But that education requirement was lifted after the ImagineIF board petitioned the State Library Commission last year to remove it for library directors serving populations larger than 25,000. The state commission dropped the requirement in October. 

Minutes from the personnel commitee’s December meeting outlined Dugan’s library certifications. According to the Montana State Library’s website, certifications are valid for four years. She received two Library Administration certifications between 2013 to 2023 and is currently 75% of the way on her third, according to the meeting minutes. Dugan holds a bachelor’s degree, and has held teaching certificates in both California and Montana. 

The minutes also indicated that Adams and Trustee Heidi Roedel spoke individually with Montana State Library lead consultant Tracy Cook and members of the Flathead County Human Resources Department. Both recommended that the board move slowly toward any significant changes in leadership, waiting to hire a new director for around four to six months. 

The backlash following Cummins’ hiring and the subsequent loss of funding wore on her while she started the new position. In a letter to the State Library Commission, Cummins wrote in support of dropping the master's degree requirement by sharing her experience as a librarian. 

Cummins wrote about being a low income mother who worked her way up through her hometown library in Alabama until she became the director. She said she thought there would be time to finish her degrees and become compliant with the education requirements when taking the role at ImagineIF, but public scrutiny was swift. 

“I began to see new stories of my candidacy popping up outside of the local news. I saw articles on Yahoo News, on social media and in niche national library groups. The comment sections were absolutely horrendous. The comments that I read on the Montana Library Association's Facebook page, the flooded 411 Information Group, and the ALA think tank, were enough to make me physically sick,” Cummins wrote in the letter. “I was being billed as an uneducated, inexperienced, backwards, book burning bigot.” 

The next ImagineIF Board of Trustees meeting takes place at the South Campus Conference Room, 40 11th St. W. in Kalispell, and is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. 

Reporter Taylor Inman can be reached at 406-758-4433 or by emailing tinman@dailyinterlake.com.