Local Resident Named New Library Director
• Maria LaBadia Will Start Work Staring in March
Feb 15, 2012 – Maria LaBadia, a Nutley resident and presently a staff librarian at the Montclair Public Library, has been named the new director of the Nutley Public Library, Anthony Iannarone, president of the library's board of trustees, announced this afternoon. LaBadia succeeds Sara Lester who left Nutley at the end of December to become director of her hometown library in Maplewood. Librarian Kiran Patel has been serving as the interim director.
LaBadia's appointment followed an arduous four-month search and review by Nutley's volunteer board of library trustees.
"While our task was to find the most compatible, qualified person, regardless of residence, there are obvious advantages to having a local Nutley resident as our director," Iannarone said."
LaBadia today expressed excitement with the appointment to her hometown library. "Thanks to my predecessors, I am inheriting a highly qualified, well trained staff with smooth running systems, services and programming," she said.
LaBadia moved to Nutley nine years ago and is the mother of a son and a daughter, both graduates of Nutley High School.
"I share the board members' wish that the library continue as an integral part of the community and as a cultural center rather than merely as a repository and distributor of books." LaBadia said she hopes to strengthen the library's relationships with township officials, local schools, the Friends of the Library, community organizations "and our patrons."
LaBadia earned a bachelor's degree from Seton Hall University and a master's of Library Science from Rutgers University. Since 2003 she has been the Youth Services Supervisor at the Montclair Library where she supervised 18 staff members responsible for the operation of the children's and young adults' departments.
Previously, she held positions at the Gwinnett County Public Library in Lawrenceville, Georgia; Saint John Regional Catholic School in Lilburn, Georgia, and the West Milord library in upper Passaic County.
Iannarone told NJHometown this afternoon that "as a trustee for nearly 40 years, I have been through the director-hiring process six times and it never gets easier.
"In the end it comes down to narrow differences among several good candidates. We will give our full support to Maria LaBadia as she assumes her new duties. We are confident that she will lead us well through the many challenges faced by municipal libraries," Iannarone said.
Wayne Greenfeder, board treasurer, said the new director will need to manager "the steadily increasing workload despite budget constraints that foreclose adding staff. In addition, there are evolutionary issues such as the development of E-books that must be handled with measured adjustments."
The library's continued growth also has created physical constraints which trustees hope will eventually be addressed by enlarging the building located on Booth Drive behind Town Hall and opposite the Vincent United Methodist Church.
"Architectural drawings already have been completed and are ready when funding becomes available," Greenfeder said today.
Iannarone noted library use increases substantially during hard economic times.
"We've encountered a 17 percent increase in our circulation during 2011," Iannarone said.
