Observer staff writer

The Rio Rancho City Council made the library its own department last month, removing it from the Department of Parks, Recreations and Community Services.

Its new name is the Department of Library and Information Services. City Manager Jim Payne said that patrons might not see much of a change.

“The intent there was to give people a better idea of what that department was about and about recreation programming, maintaining and developing parks and providing the community with the type of services not provided elsewhere in the city,” he said. “I think the library is not exactly at the top of their priority, so having a separate department and a director who is at a level of other department heads, can help.”

The new department will have a new manager at the end of January. Long-time manager Toni Beatty is retiring.

“She has been the architect of the library system,” Payne said. “The library was still a room at city hall. It has come a long way.”

Beatty started working for the city in 1986.

After passage of bond referendums in 1990, she helped design the Esther Bone Memorial Library on Pinetree Road, which opened in 1992. That library has closed, but Payne anticipates it to open next year.

Rio Rancho residents approved a $5.5 million dollar bond in 2004 to build the current Loma Colorado Main Library, which is at 755 Loma Colorado Drive NE

The library is open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., Monday through Thursday and from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.

Payne said the city is in the process of establishing a recruitment process to find Beatty’s replacement.

“We don’t have a timetable for it yet,” Payne said. “We would like to get someone in as soon as possible, hopefully, before Toni leaves. We would like her to impart some of her long established wisdom to the new manager.”

Payne said he would advertise the position statewide and select people to interview.

“By the time we get somebody new, we will have two libraries and the responsibility of the director is to run the library, work with the board, select materials and establish policies,” Payne said.

Some of the duties the library manager performs include:

• Administer the public library system to New Mexico Library Association and the American Library Association standards;

• Acquire and care for the book and materials collection;

• Select and direct the library staff and volunteers;

• Care for the library equipment and physical plants;

• Direct long-range planning efforts to provide the city with continued quality library services and facilities; and

• Provide staff assistance to the Library Board of Trustees.