Last week we reported that D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams takes in $152,000 in compensation, a salary some viewed as excessive and others as not excessive enough. But if this is how much we currently judge the city’s chief executive to be worth, what would we pay, let’s say, the chief librarian?

A lot more, as news has it. The Common Denominator reported on Friday that the D.C. Board of Library Trustees decided to hire Ginnie Cooper as the system’s newest executive director, and pay her $205,000 for her troubles ($179,946 in salary and $25,054 as a “retention incentive”). Cooper will come to D.C. after three-and-a-half years leading the Brooklyn Public Library system, which has 60 libraries and serves some 3 million people and for which she was paid $200,000.

Is she worth that much? There is little doubt that anyone charged with fixing the District’s notoriously troubled public library system will need a good financial incentive to stay on the job, but is being paid almost $50,000 more than the city’s chief executive a fair investment? Not in this case, opined Dorothy Brizill of D.C. Watch:

In a press release announcing Cooper’s appointment, the library board says that “Cooper brings a clear vision of excellence in library services, as well as success in library management and fundraising to the executive director position.” However, New York City newspapers have been replete with stories of Cooper’s management snafus. Last year she had to repay $27,000 after auditors found that she had taken more than six weeks of vacation that were not allowed in her contract. The New York Sun reported that “the Brooklyn Public Library system has struggled with budget cuts, and its branches are currently open fewer hours that those of either of the city’s other two library systems, New York and Queens.” The New York Daily News quoted NYC Councilman Charles Barrow on Cooper’s appointment to head the DC Library system: “I’m sure there won’t be a whole lot of tears . . . over her departure.”

Cooper’s immediate predecessor, interim director Francis Buckley, took in $138,159 per year while former director Molly Raphael earned $121,000.

We knew we should have studied library science in college.