More than two years after the previous director retired, the Wareham Free Library finally has a new director on the job - but it's not the woman whose imminent hiring was announced two weeks ago.

Denise Medeiros, former director of the Dartmouth Public Libraries, accepted the Wareham post and was in town Library Trustees' and Selectmen's meetings on Tuesday.

"I'm excited to be here, she told selectmen. "I'm looking forward to working together to see if we can get the library growing into the 21st century."

Just two weeks previously, Town Administrator Mark Andrews had told the same board that Lawrence library director Maureen Nimmo was his and a selection committee's unanimous choice for the job. Although an offer still had to be made and the salary finalized, all spoke as if Nimmo would be the next Wareham librarian.

But Nimmo, citing family concerns, opted to remain in Lawrence.

Fortunately, Medeiros - a finalist for the Wareham job -- was waiting in the wings. After approximately six years of leading Dartmouth's three-library system, she was a budget-cut casualty in the spring of 2009.

In Wareham, she steps into a long-open position leading an institution that has been at the center of community controversy in recent years.

The library's last permanent director, the late Mary Jane Pillsbury, served the library for 35 years, stepping down in April 2008 due to declining health.

Then-assistant-director Susan Pizzolato was named acting director, but she left to take a position as director of the Mattapoisett library a year later.

Since then, the library has been led by interim director Marcia Griswold, doing double duty with her primary role as Director of Senior and Social Services. The board thanked Griswold for overseeing the library for the past 13 months.

Throughout the period of interim directors, the library has been the focus of a steady stream of charges and counter-charges about financial improprieties, the proper role of trustees, and the role of the non-profit Friends of the Wareham Free Library.

Most recently, complaints from an unspecified source summoned the State Inspector General's office to Wareham to look at the library's financial records. That investigation is still in process.

Meeting Tuesday afternoon, the library trustees and members of the Friends of the Wareham Free Library were told by Town Account Elizabeth Zaleski that Andrews was investigating complaints that some recent invoices at the library had been improperly backdated.

But as she took the helm this week, Medeiros was thinking of opportunity, not problems.
"I'm looking forward to it, and I'm anxious to get the ball rolling," she told the Library Trustees at their earlier meeting.

“The top three finalists were all wonderful and qualified, and we're not a bit disappointed,” said Selectmen Chair Jane Donahue, welcoming Medieros to the position.