Mission Viejo’s former Library Director Valerie Maginnis has stirred controversy in Boulder, Colorado by firing a 50-year volunteer. Maginnis left MV last year to accept the same position for Boulder.
A Boulder citizen sent a comment to the Mission Viejo Dispatch stating, “You can have [her] BACK!”
The volunteer, Judy Volc, has been reading to Boulder’s children for half a century with Storytime for Kids. She told the City’s Daily Camera, ”While I was working, I taught children’s literature at CU and (the University of Denver); I spoke at national conferences. It’s not like I don’t have a pretty good reputation in the field. It’s really what I do. It’s always been about the books and the kids. It’s really tough.”
Maginnis told the DC reporter she wanted to hire staff instead of using volunteers. She praised Volc’s service, but explained, “I can’t hold volunteers accountable. I can hold staff accountable.”
Volc offered to read on days when it wouldn’t interfere with the staff schedule, but Maginnis declined. Judy’s last day with Storytime will be this Wednesday.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Very interesting but true.
When I visited my daughter in Boulder in October for a CU football game I happened to attend a tailgate party. I mentioned to a rather prominent member of Boulder that I was from Mission Viejo, Ca. They noted, without solicitation their new head librarian from Mission Viejo and gave me an earful about her alienation of some of the community.
I passed it off at the time, but did tell him “no take backs.”
Boulder just got a taste of MV bureaucracy empire building and arrogance – hope they don’t think all MV people are like
this.
I never did like that woman; always walking around with her nose in the air and the 2 yrs I WORKED at the library she never, ever said one word to me; I was a non-entity.
Nonsense! I worked with Valerie as a volunteer at the library and she is not arrogant nor an “empire-builder.” She has the right to make personnel decisions for the betterment of the library. We do not know all of the issues here and it is none of our business anyhow.
I’ve been living in Boulder, CO almost 4 years now. Our public library has a terrible problem with badly-behaved homeless people, many of them transients from Denver and elsewhere who come here to grab all of the free goods and services they can — at the expense of Boulder’s own homeless residents. They have trashed many other public venues, too. Valerie Maginnis has done NOTHING to institute rules of conduct at Boulder Public Library (like those at public libraries in Seattle, WA and Los Angeles, CA); coming from Mission Viejo, CA it’s very unlikely that Ms. Maginnis had a clue about how to deal with the bum influx we suffer in Boulder, CO. If we can’t send her back, can we at least send you some of the 900+ homeless people on the streets here?
I worked with Valerie Maginnis for many years at the Mission Viejo Library as a volunteer and as a member of The Friends of the MV Library. She was always very friendly and she did a great job overall as the Director of the Library. I do not know the circumstances involved in this volunteer removal. I do not understand this criticism and I feel it is unwarranted. I believe Boulder is quite fortunate to have such a competent and caring person managing their library.
The controversy continues to grow here in Boulder, CO — Library Commission Urges Maginnis to Reconsider.
I don’t recall such a unanimity of opinion on any other issue here in the past 4 years; people want [former MV Library Director] Ms. Maginnis to reinstate the Storytime volunteer and admit she made a mistake or they want Ms. Maginnis gone.