Incumbents win in Schaumburg Twp. Library board

Although all four incumbents seeking re-election to the Schaumburg Township District Library board succeeded Tuesday, it wasn't a free ride.

Because of the candidacy of challenger William Olson, the four trustees couldn't just lean on their combined 100 years of experience but had to explain and defend their current qualifications for the job.

Incumbent Robert Lyons has served on the board for 40 years, Robert Frankel for 32 years, Ruth Jonen for 24 and Anita Forte-Scott for four.

With 105 of 105 precincts reporting, the incumbents each garnered approximately 21 percent of the vote while Olson got 15 percent.

Unofficial vote totals show Forte-Scott with 4,098 votes, Jonen with 4,023, Lyons with 3,996, Frankel with 3,953 and Olson with 2,862.

This was the first run for office of Olson, who said his interest in the library board derived from a love and intense use of the library.

"It was a fun process. For whatever reason, I didn't win - that's how it works," he said, adding that he might run for another office sometime in the future.

Olson believed the path to improvement was in taking a different direction in some areas, particularly financial, while the incumbents defended the library's current financial and operational policies.

The library was recently ranked among the top 10 in the nation for its size in Hennen's American Public Library Ratings.

The incumbents all expressed a desire to provide new director Stephanie Sarnoff with a sense of continuity as she begins her service to the community. The board hired Sarnoff just a few months ago, the first time in 41 years that the library has had a new director.

Frankel, who's been treasurer of the board for the past several years, said the library is in strong financial shape and was even able to build its Hoffman Estates branch and half of its Hanover Park branch with money left over when the central library came in under budget in the '90s.

Lyons said the board has already been preparing the library to serve the growing needs of its patrons during a time of declining revenues. The necessity of adapting to the times has not been lost on current trustees as Olson has suggested, Lyons said.

Forte-Scott said even Olson's idea for creating electronic versions of existing library books is not as simple as he suggests, as copyright laws don't allow such conversions automatically.