Garfield County Libraries’ board of trustees announced at its June 11 meeting that it had voted unanimously to appoint an internal candidate, Abraham Korah, as its next executive director. Korah spent the past three years leading the Glenwood Springs Branch Library and will now oversee all of the county’s six libraries from Carbondale to Parachute.
Korah, who lives in New Castle, was previously the library director at Colorado Mountain College’s Spring Valley campus, and before that, he worked as both a librarian and educational leader at a Lone Star College campus near Houston. He holds masters degrees in library science and business administration as well as a doctorate of education.
The library district’s former executive director, Jamie LaRue, retired April 9 after four years in the position and decades of leading public libraries across the state. LaRue now serves on the board of The Sopris Sun and the Glenwood Springs Historical Society and recently joined the advocacy group Protect Our Garfield County Libraries.
LaRue has been a staunch advocate against efforts — both locally and nationally — to censor books. Korah said he’s ready to take on a similar role to protect what he sees as “the freedom to read” while also listening to community concerns and helping the libraries bring a diversity of residents together during a fractured time for Garfield County and the nation.
“With any new executive director, they're going to bring in new ideas and a new perspective, and we certainly welcome that,” said Nancy Barnes, director of branch libraries.
Barnes oversees operations at the county’s six libraries and also served as interim executive director during the recent search process.
“I know that Abraham is also committed to the strategic goals that we currently have in place, and he's a big champion of intellectual freedom and the First Amendment, which is part of why our staff feel so comfortable and happy having him in this new role,” Barnes said.
Korah was one of the four top candidates recommended by a search committee made up of Barnes, the library district’s human resources director and two library board members. Several candidates withdrew their applications last month, and board members ultimately chose between Korah and Karen Horner, who has led the Park County Libraries in Wyoming since 2020. The two finalists participated in library tours, community meet-and-greets, and interviews with the board of trustees, which made a final decision to appoint Korah on May 29.
For his part, LaRue confirmed that he supports the library board’s decision to hire a qualified internal candidate who is already familiar with the libraries and the communities they serve.
“Abraham was not the only person on the staff that I said, you know, ‘You should definitely apply,’ but he was a really, really strong contender,” LaRue said. “He's just very patient and understanding of staff and the public, has a strong service ethic, and an ability to connect with the community and deal with everyone with respect and humility.”
Korah grew up in Iowa after his family immigrated to the U.S. from India. His local public library played an important role in his childhood, and he remembers going there every week to check out his favorite music magazines and Lonely Planet guides.
“We were a family that was a typical immigrant story — you come for economic prospects, but there's a struggle, and we didn't necessarily have a lot of resources,” Korah said. “Even though I was just a kid growing up in Des Moines, Iowa, the library opened up the whole world to me.”
Now, Korah hopes to continue bringing those same resources and a sense of community to Garfield County’s public libraries.
Preparing for challenges
Korah is taking the helm amid ongoing efforts by some residents to restrict certain books with adult themes — and he is preparing for some of the same challenges that LaRue faced before his retirement, including calls by a few individuals for his resignation.
“I would not be surprised if the same thing happened for me, and I did think about that beforehand as well — both in terms of a safety perspective as well as in terms of my ability to serve the community and to really be able to do this job well,” Korah said. “But I feel very confident that I can do this job and I can be the representative that I was asked by the board to be.”
The controversy began in 2023, when two local residents petitioned the libraries to prevent minors from accessing several Japanese graphic-novel series with sexual content — including one featuring LGBTQ+ characters — and all books with parental advisory labels. In response, county commissioners took greater control over the appointment process for library trustees and have since appointed five of the board's seven members.
The board has considered several measures, including a restricted library card for minors, but has declined to implement any new policies, citing a 2024 Colorado law that limits book restrictions at public libraries. Supporters of book restrictions say they want to protect children from inappropriate materials, while opponents view the effort as part of a national push by some conservatives to censor books about LGBTQ+ people and other marginalized groups.
Nationally, librarians have been fired as well as faced threats of violence and criminal charges for refusing to remove books.
Korah sees some of the efforts by individuals in Garfield County to restrict books as an attempt to disrupt the library’s mission to serve all of its patrons, but he said he’s open to engaging with residents who have genuine concerns about library resources and policies in a professional, civil manner.
“We don't necessarily have to always agree on everything, but we do need to be respectful of each other, and that's what I'm really working towards,” Korah said. “When there are individuals that seem to be bringing up concerns that are maybe somewhat disingenuous in terms of their nature, what that does, unfortunately, is it actually detracts from our ability to serve our communities.”
Ultimately, Korah believes the county’s public libraries should reflect the wide diversity of interests and perspectives of its residents, and it’s not the library’s role to censor that.
“We really want to make sure that we have something for everyone, … so you have the option to to engage with materials, and you have the option to also not engage with materials,” Korah said. “We also look at various metrics like popularity and interest to communities — our libraries have limited space, so, for the most part, if the community is not interested in materials within a couple of years, they actually move on to another life.”
Building on a foundation
Despite the ongoing controversy over book censorship, the number of people attending programs and using Garfield County’s libraries has been growing in the years since the COVID-19 pandemic — from 308,675 visits in 2022 to 445,987 in 2025, an increase of 44.5%.
According to the library district, staff turnover also decreased significantly — to 8.7% last year from 45.2% in 2021.
Korah recognizes the strong foundation that has been established in recent years and intends to continue many of the same management strategies as his predecessor, LaRue.
“One of the things that Jamie brought to the district was he really made sure that our employees were trusted, and that basis of trust helped our employees to grow, to be productive and to really do their best work,” Korah said. “When someone comes into a position where it doesn't require radical change, what behooves them then is to really look around and learn from the staff that are there, and from that point on is to think about incremental change.”
Korah added: “I want to make sure that we're really kind of buttoning things up, refining things and solidifying our foundation, structures and processes.”
In a community survey of county voters conducted by the library district and a Colorado-based research polling firm in January, about 80% of the 695 respondents “approved of the job the Garfield County Public Library District is doing.”
Korah said the survey was meant to gauge support for a potential ballot measure the library district is considering proposing for the November election to extend its mill levy, which expires next year. A mill levy is a property tax used to fund local public services such as libraries, school districts, and county and municipal governments.
Garfield County’s library district mill levy was originally approved when the district was created to fund building costs for six new libraries. Those buildings have since been finished, but district officials have said losing nearly $1 million per year that the mill levy brings in could impact future building improvements and daily operations.
“[The mill levy] averages at about $38 per year per household, … and we're able to use that money to basically fund all of our materials, but also our buildings and the events and programs that we have as well,” Korah said. “One of the steps in determining whether or not to renew a mill levy is to understand the appetite of the voters and their sentiments. Our taxpayers and voters are thinking about us as an institution that's important to the community, and they're also giving us that 80% approval rating.”
In addition to securing the financial future of the county’s libraries to continue providing resources and programs, Korah also wants to focus on growing the library’s role in bringing people together and serving as a community hub.
“That's really what we want to focus on, is really meeting the needs of the community and taking that trust that they've given us and making sure that we live up to that,” Korah said.
