Murphy: BPL still rots from the head; demands library trustees resign en masse

I'm glad BPL is cleaning house but somewhat lost in all this is $1,000,000 worth of painting and other rare items have been stolen. It would be nice to see more stories about the investigation and leads and less about the need for staff changes.

I sure hope they aren't just considering the stolen items gone for good like some unreturned library book.

UPDATE: Credit where credit is due. Seems like things are not stolen as I (and most of Boston) had been lead to believe and just misfiled. Hopefully everything else is found and the administrative changes improve things further.

to guard the Library, as Murph had suggested, none of this would have happened.

Who would be better for the Library Board?...

BostonGLobe online is reporting that the 2 missing pieces that triggered all this stuff were found. "80 feet from where they should have been filed ..."

Both rare works of art missing from the Boston Public Library have been found, state Rep. Byron Rushing told the Herald this afternoon.

Rushing, a BPL trustee, said in a phone interview that he received a text message from library president Amy Ryan saying the two missing prints have been recovered.

But he said he did not know the circumstances around their discovery or if it was determined how they went missing.

"The question is how did they get misplaced? That's very important to find out exactly where did they find them," Rushing said, adding that the board never dismissed the possibility that the prints were misfiled even amid the FBI and Boston Police probes. "Now misfiling is not a good thing. We certainly want to know the circumstances."

An official announcement is expected this afternoon, a source added.

The two prints were a 1504 engraving by Albrecht Durer, worth $600,000, and a 1634 Rembrandt etching, worth between $20,000 and $30,000. The disappearance of both prompted investigations by the FBI, U.S. Attorney's office and Boston Police.

Ryan handed in her resignation yesterday, saying she would leave her $195,000-a-year job in July due to the ongoing controversy over the missing art.

Library officials are also investigating a report that a set of gold coins may have disappeared decades ago under the library's watch. And following a heated board meeting yesterday during which she made no mention of other probes, Ryan then revealed to reporters that officials were probing a separate report that several pages from a music manuscript donated to the library were also missing.

http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/herald_bulldog/2...

They found the artworks

"Library officials said the Durer and Rembrandt were found in Row 14B, Bay 3 on Shelf 2, approximately 80 feet from where they should have been filed."

Massachusetts Public LIbraries' leadership need leaders who would look for better resources for front line staffs & thus for library users. Safety and security begin with the people developing greater loyalty to our public library

Massachusetts Friends of Libraries
http://mblc.state.ma.us/advisory/trustees/index.php

Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners
http://mblc.state.ma.us/

Online forums
http://mblc.state.ma.us/mblc/lists/index.php

Imagine investing a very small amount of $ (relatively speaking) into the BPL system instead of the Shirley Leung Olympics. This investment would actually be serving the public for decades to follow.

... by folks who obviously can't run anything competently. I wish that Boston had a recall provision.

Boston Public Library Board
http://www.bpl.org/general/trustees/trustees.htm

Jeffrey B. Rudman, Chairman of the Board
Evelyn Arana-Ortiz, Vice Chairman of the Board

Board Members
Zamawa Arenas
Laura DeBonis
Carol Fulp
John T. Hailer
Paul A. La Camera
Dennis Lehane
Byron Rushing

Jeffrey B. Rudman is a senior partner at the Boston law firm of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, and the former co-chair of their Securities Litigation and Enforcement Department. He is a nationally recognized authority on defending shareholder class actions and Securities and Exchange Commission investigations. Mr. Rudman lectures on shareholder litigation and corporate governance for such organizations as American International Group, NASDAQ and the National Investor Relations Institute, among others. He has been listed in every edition of The Best Lawyers in America.

Mr. Rudman is dedicated to supporting the community and has served many charitable institutions. During the 1990s, Mr. Rudman served as a director of the Boston Public Library Foundation and helped lead the effort to restore the McKim Building. He is a former member of the board of the Boston Museum Project and served for many years as the secretary of the New England Rhodes Scholarship Selection Committee. Mr. Rudman is a past member of the Community Advisory Board at WGBH and former trustee of the Buckingham Browne & Nichols School. He presently belongs to the St. Botolph Club.

A graduate of Columbia College and Harvard Law School, where he won the Ames Moot Court Competition, Mr. Rudman spent two years as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, taking a First in the Honours School of Modern History.

Mr. Rudman is a resident of Charlestown where, together with his wife and two sons, he has lived for more than two decades.

Evelyn Arana-Ortiz is a Senior Healthcare IT Leader with 20+ years of healthcare domestic and international experience, who has demonstrated the ability to improve business operations by increasing customer satisfaction and exceeding financial targets. She is an exceptional leader earning numerous company awards for outstanding performance managing highly complex practice management implementations for large medical groups and academic medical practices.

Mrs. Arana-Ortiz is originally from San Juan, Puerto Rico, currently working at GE Healthcare. She is very committed to serve the community and has served at various non-profit organizations; she currently chairs the BPL Finance and Audit Committee and the Fellowes Athenaeum Trust Fund Advisory Committee.

[ more... ]
http://www.bpl.org/general/trustees/trustees.htm