After doing without for a year and a half, Ogdensburg Public Library is getting its children’s librarian back.

Soon.

Library Director Wayne L. Miller said Friday that there are four candidates for the job from a Civil Service list. He said he plans to conduct interviews and hire someone “as soon as possible.”

The position has been vacant since the January 2011 retirement of Bonnie Wright. Budget cutbacks at the library during 2011 kept a replacement from being hired. But the post was approved for the city’s 2012 budget.

And that was a good thing. According to Mr. Miller, volunteers and even on occasion Mrs. Wright herself have stepped in to fill the breach and preside over the library’s popular, well-attended children’s programs after school and during summers and holidays.

But the well-intended efforts have had uneven results. Programs have thinned and attendance has dropped.

“We’ve had a skeleton children’s program,” Mr. Miller said.

And that is not all. In recent months, both children’s attendance and circulation of children’s books at the library have dropped off from after Mrs. Wright left.

“That’s not a good sign,” Mr. Miller said.

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