The Kalona Public Library will have a new director in April.

At Monday’s meeting, the City Council approved the recommendation from the Library Board to hire Trevor Sherping to replace Anne Skaden who is retiring after more than 25 years as director.

Sherping currently works as a part-time clerk at the library and is working on finishing up his master’s degree.

“He’s been working for the library as a clerk and shows outstanding leadership potential for our library,” Library Board President Frank Slabaugh said.

Slabaugh said that a lot of work went into the interview process.

“We went through several months looking at job description and getting the ad posted,” he said. “When it came down to the interview process, we met with the full board, we had Jenelle (Bender) representing the City Council, we had members from our Friends Club and fellow employees that came together.

“We brainstormed what our priorities for what our next director are. One of the top priorities that came out of that was a collaborator and a teamwork approach.”

After interviewing three candidates, the subcommittee made a recommendation to the full board for follow-up interviews with two in-house candidates.

“We were very privileged that we had two outstanding candidates from our own library,” Slabaugh said.

Along with Sherping’s hire, the Library Board recommended that Youth Services Librarian Olivia Kahler’s position be re-evaluated.

“We want to see if we can pull some shared leadership potential and rewrite the job descriptions,” Slabaugh said. “They are working on that as we speak, possibly changing the title from youth services librarian to a more overarching title. A salary increase is also something we’ll be looking for.”