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Sunday, April 22, 2007
Cal Warlick / On Gwinnett
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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All in all, it’s just another plaque on the wall
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Gwinnett County Public Library system wins lots of awards but rarely is it honored by one of its loudest critics.
Denise Varenhorst, president of Family Friendly Libraries, announced last week that the library system was the winner of an “Award of Recognition” from her organization.
Varenhorst is the Suwanee mom whose persistent complaints to the library board helped stop the sell-off of the system’s video collection in 2005 and may have contributed to the firing of GCPL’s executive director, Jo Ann Pinder, last year.
Varenhorst, some may recall, complained in March 2006 that Pinder had screamed at her during an argument over access to public records. Pinder denied screaming at Varenhorst, but in April of that year, she apologized to Varenhorst at a public meeting of the library board. The board decided not to discipline Pinder then. But two months later, the board fired her without cause.
Varenhorst was named president of FFL last month.
The organization decided to honor Gwinnett’s public libraries, Varenhorst said, because “they meet all seven of our Standards for Public Libraries and deserve to be commended.”
The standards include filtering pornography from library computers, allowing parents to see a list of items borrowed by their children and to forbid their children to check out books from certain sections of the library.
Varenhorst said Pinder’s firing had nothing to do with the award from FFL.
“Frankly, if she was still there we’d probably still be giving them the award,” Varenhorst said.
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