Baltimore County names new library director

After 10 months without a library director, the Baltimore County Public Library has chosen one: Jason Homer of the Worcester Public Library System in Massachusetts.

Homer will lead the 19-branch Baltimore County system that serves a diverse population of 856,000 across 682 square miles. Worcester has about 216,000 residents, and its library has six branches.

The trustees voted Homer in at a 1 p.m. meeting today, after which he said he was “super super excited” and had “fallen in love with every branch” of the library on his interview visit.

“When I left my weekend in the county, I knew I was the right person,” he said with a smile, “and I just hoped everyone else saw it.”

Homer, 39, will start on Dec. 1. The library’s leadership team has been rotating who serves in the top spot for the last 10 months. Homer said he will be around in the months before be begins, though he will be wrapping up in Massachusetts. Much of his family lives in Maryland already, he said.

As for his plans for the library, Homer said they were “to empower our staff, to serve our community, and to build an organization that is both responsive and reflective.”

Havaca Ganguly, Board of Library Trustees president, said Homer is the right person for the position, which will oversee a $50 million budget.

“Jason embodies the mission and values of Baltimore County Public Library, bringing fresh ideas, empowering leadership styles and a distinguished and award-winning record of service to our system’s strong foundation,” she said.

The Baltimore County Public Library Board of Trustees began its search for a new leader early this year after it parted ways with its previous director in December.

Sonia Alcántara-Antoine, the first Black female leader of the 530-employee system, resigned after a backlash to her decision to fire 14 part-time librarians shortly before Thanksgiving. She fired them over Zoom and they had to leave immediately afterward, some under security escort.

After major pushback from the board, members of the Baltimore County Council, labor unions and Baltimore County Executive Kathy Klausmeier, Alcántara-Antoine rehired the librarians. She also fired her human resources director, Robin Linton, and said she was committed to “making it right.”

It wasn’t enough to ease tensions, which some of the librarians say had lasted for much of her five-year tenure.

Anita Bass, president of IAM Local 4538, said the director – who had the title of library CEO – had created a top-down structure that demoralized lower-level staff. She beefed up staff at the headquarters, hiring several people to high-salaried positions. Meanwhile, Bass said, library branches were often short-staffed, despite a $51 million operating budget for 2025. Bass said the former leader also resisted the union, tried to reclassify some jobs, quashed flexibility in the branches, and communicated poorly.

The Baltimore County library trustees, employees and patrons are hoping for a reset with Homer. He was named one of Library Journal’s Changemakers last year for his outreach to underserved communities in the Boston area. The Journal reported that, over two years, his staff’s efforts helped connect 25,000 people – among them immigrants, unhoused individuals, those reentering from prison and new English learners – to services that could assist them with finding homes, jobs and therapy.

“I encouraged my team to take chances and make mistakes, and I couldn’t be more proud,” Homer told the Journal. “I am also deeply proud as a gay man leading an organization. I try every day to make myself a signal of safety to everyone in my community. My goal is to empower all people to reach their full potential by removing barriers of access.”

Homer and the other finalists toured some of the library branches this summer and met with branch leaders and union officials as well as other staffers. Library employees were also able to read bios of each of the finalists and watch a short video presentation, then could then rank which candidate they liked best. It’s not clear how much the board took that feedback into its consideration.

In a statement after Homer’s confirmation, Bass said the union welcomes him and is “committed to building a strong working relationship” with him.

“We expect the new Executive Director to recognize and respect the important role that library workers and their union play in BCPL’s future,” she said.