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Carnegie Library director to resign
Herb Elish
Mike Wereschagin can be reached via e-mail or at 412-320-7900.
Elish, 71, announced Monday in a letter to library board members that he and his wife, Eloise Hirsh, will return to his native New York City some time next year to be closer to their children. The couple has two sons in their 40s and a 20-year-old daughter attending Columbia University.
"It's a tough choice," Elish said Tuesday. "I'm going to miss it. But the draw of family is irresistible."
He added, however, that he will not be leaving until some time next year so that he can help the library board find his replacement. Elish makes about $130,000 a year overseeing the system's main library in Oakland and 19 branches.
During his six years leading the library, Elish, a former CEO of Weirton Steel, led a capital campaign to renovate the libraries, aiming to make them more popular by incorporating features found in major bookstore chains. Four libraries are done -- including the main library, which will open Sunday -- and three more will be completed in the next six months, Elish said.
It's all been done during a time of dwindling state support and flat allocations from the Allegheny Regional Asset District, the library's two major funding sources. The main library opened in 1895, paid for by steel magnate Andrew Carnegie. He paid for the buildings, but didn't set up an endowment to fund the libraries' operations. That means the public pays nearly all of the Carnegie Library's $23 million annual budget, mostly through state and asset district money.
Allegheny County Judge Frank Lucchino, chairman of the library's executive committee, attributed Elish's success to his experience in business. In addition to running Weirton Steel for 8 1/2 years, Elish was vice president of International Paper and New York City's sanitation commissioner. He also is chairman of Allegheny General Hospital's board of trustees.
Lucchino served on the search committee that hired Elish six years ago -- at the time, they expected him to stay for three years -- and said he was the first director who didn't come from a librarian background.
"We felt that we had lots of good professional librarians on staff, and still do," Lucchino said. "We needed somebody who was going to be able to adapt to the changing economic environment for us."
Elish also has streamlined the library's management structure and, in the process, won over "99 percent" of the people who originally felt a library system ought to be led by a librarian, Lucchino said.
Given the sluggish economy, Elish's successor will need to have some business savvy, Lucchino said.
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