{"id":65189,"date":"2020-01-22T13:21:21","date_gmt":"2020-01-22T20:21:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/library-director-leaves-cortez\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T05:37:55","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T11:37:55","slug":"library-director-leaves-cortez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/library-director-leaves-cortez\/","title":{"rendered":"Library director leaves Cortez"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=3897c120-0fa9-40d4-8acc-bee28c58f12f&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1329\" alt=\"After more than five years as director of the Cortez Public Library, Eric Ikenouye is heading to Oregon.\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">After more than five years as director of the Cortez Public Library, Eric Ikenouye is heading to Oregon.<\/span><span class=\"credit\">Journal file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>After more than five years as director of the Cortez Public Library, Eric Ikenouye is heading to Oregon, where he will continue his library work.<\/p>\n<p>Last week was his last in Cortez. He is moving on to serve as director of the Albany Public Library in Oregon.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHonestly, I\u2019ve loved being the library director in Cortez,\u201d Ikenouye said at a City Council work session Jan. 14. \u201cIt\u2019s been an honor to serve this community.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ikenouye came on to the post in <a href=\"https:\/\/the-journal.com\/articles\/19742-cortez-library-hires-new-leader\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">June 2014<\/a>. Prior to arriving in Cortez, he worked as a librarian in Utah, at the Westminster College library, Salt Lake City Public Library, and at the Western Governors University library.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEric\u2019s move is a wonderful opportunity for him and his family, but Oregon\u2019s gain is most definitely our loss,\u201d Cortez Mayor Karen Sheek told The Journal.<\/p>\n<p>She pointed to many projects he has supported and initiated, including expanding the library\u2019s community programming, implementing regular entertainment programming, bringing in a variety of local authors, gathering community input on a prospective library expansion, and helping to develop a five-year capital-improvement plan for the library.<\/p>\n<p>Ikenouye was also heavily involved in local public arts programs, serving as staff liaison for the Cortez Community Public Arts Committee.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe has overseen a number of great public arts programs, including the Gallery Windows program on Main Street and the development of a map illustrating the city\u2019s public murals, with locations and a brief description of each,\u201d Sheek said. \u201cHe has supported our outstanding library staff and has set the bar very high for the next director.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Cortez City Manager John Dougherty said the city will advertise for a new library director until a qualified candidate has been found. Currently, Alissa Baxstrom is serving as the interim director until a permanent replacement joins the staff.<\/p>\n<p><em class=\"mwc_shirttail\"><a href=\"mailto:ealvero@the-journal.com\">ealvero@the-journal.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ikenouye heads to Oregon after five-plus years<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":65190,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,318,28,638,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-65189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-cortez-municipal-government","tag-headlines","tag-library-and-museum","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65189"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65189\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90498,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65189\/revisions\/90498"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65189"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=65189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}