Candidates from as far away as Canada and California, as well as a half dozen from central Ohio, have applied to become the next director of the Worthington Libraries.

A search committee seeking the successor to Meribah Mansfield received 37 applications from their consulting search firm on Monday.

The committee will meet Thursday, May 6, at 6 p.m. to go over the applications and to narrow the field to five to seven applicants, said Libraries spokesperson Lisa Fuller.

Those semifinalists will be invited to interview with the search committee on May 20 and 21.

Two or three semifinalists will be chosen and invited to meet with library staff and the community on June 3 and 4.

If all goes as planned, the library board will make its choice on June 15.

Mansfield, director for the past 19 years, will retire on June 23.

Among the locally familiar names on the list of candidates is Chuck Gibson, a former Worthington Libraries administrator who is now director of the South Georgia Regional Library in Valdosta, Ga.

The only current Worthington Libraries staffer on the list is deputy director Kristin Shelley.

Other central Ohio candidates include Cathleen Allen, director of the Hurt/Battelle Memorial Library, West Jefferson; Michael Blackwell, manager of the Dublin branch, Columbus Metropolitan Library; Jodi Lee, business applications manager, Columbus Metropolitan Library; Chauncey Montgomery, director/fiscal officer, Community Library, Sunbury; Christine Taylor, deputy director, Columbus Metropolitan Library; and Nick Tepe, manager, main circulation division, Columbus Metropolitan Library.

The candidate from outside the country is Warrick Chin, who currently resides in China but plans to return to Canada, where he was head of technical and automation services at Algoma University Library, Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario.

Most of the other candidates are with public or college or university libraries.

Fuller said that the search committee is looking for candidates with a strong business acumen and experience in public libraries, along with a long list of other attributes developed with the input of library staff, board, and the community.

The board hired consultants Gossage Sager Associates to assist with the selection. The board and search committee worked with the consultants to create an advertisement that was placed nationally.

The company has worked all over the country and had access to a wide range of potential applicants, Fuller said.

"I know they talked to hundreds of people," she said.

The consultants contacted the applicants by telephone and will share their information with the search board to help in the selection process.

Members of the search committee are Lynn Nadler, president of the library board; trustee Anne Doyle; former trustees Michelle Shinew and Beth Sommer; former trustee and current president of the Friends Foundation of the Worthington Libraries Rick Bradley; library human resources manager Phyllis Winfield; and Fuller.