By Dan Spalding
News Now Warsaw
WARSAW — He heard about the vote and understands what is at stake, but sees some potential “wins” amid Warsaw’s no-good, awful, difficult summer.
Joe Fox, a 46-year-old Wabash native, said he was looking for a challenge and said he found one with his new job as library director at the Warsaw Community Public Library.
Fox began his new role on Sept. 21 and replaces Heather Barron, who focused two years of her time on a renovation plan and left shortly after Warsaw City Council chose not to support it with a $17 million bond that would have paid for renovations and replacement of numerous mechanical issues that are long overdue.
The recent vote precludes the library from seeking another bond issue for two years.
“I don’t think that we’re going to be able to jump right back into this,” Fox said in a sit-down interview with News Now Warsaw.
“We need to raise our visibility and our goodwill in the community and remind people how important the work is,” he said.
Another attempt down the road is expected, but it’s unclear what that will look like.
“One of my primary parts of my job is to convince people that this is worth it, and I truly believe that it is,” he said.
Fox has degrees from Ball State University and Indiana University and worked for nearly a decade with the Indianapolis Public Library in a range of jobs, including overseeing a fleet of mobile libraries.
For the past three years, he was director at the Culver-Union Township Library, where he faced another type of challenge when the library saw a significant loss of staff due to tensions with the previous library director.
As an administrator, Fox said he believes he’s well suited to face the next goals.
“I am super encouraged by the amount of people working on our behalf and how quickly efforts were organized after that May meeting. I mean, it happened overnight.
“That kind of energy is what I’m going to harness, and we’re going to build an even stronger plan for our future,” Fox said. “That’s what the next one to two years for me is, making the library more visible, more accessible, more friendly.”
He urged patience as he learns more about the circumstances and said he has an open-door policy when it comes to talking with the public about the library. He said he will continue to reach out to groups that want to be involved with the library.
He also expressed empathy for taxpayers, many of whom spoke against the bond issue.
“I try and put myself in the heads of people who are really struggling right now who don’t want another raise on their taxes. And to those people, I would tell them … Remember what the common good is and how many people we do help, and we have the numbers to show you.
He was asked what his message would be to people who think libraries are no longer relevant?
“Well, just because the library isn’t relevant to those people or their families doesn’t mean that it’s not relevant to a great many others.”
