[OPLINLIST] For all of you who are agents of change facing reluctant staff...

Thu May 24 09:41:48 EDT 2007

For all of you who are agents of change facing reluctant staff, you are
not alone.  Note: the estimated 2007 population for Sacramento is
467,343.  

Jimmie

Staffers fear library's too pop-fixated (Sacramento library staffers are
circulating a petition of no-confidence in management, decrying what
they view as a departure from amassing a rich research collection to
pandering to the whims of the YouTube generation. Librarians question
administrators' selection of materials for the 27 location system, which
included six copies of Paris Hilton's "Confessions of an Heiress"
autobiography and 10 copies of the film "Jackass 2." The dissenting
librarians plan to present the petition with 600 signatures from staff,
former staff and patrons to the library's board at a Thursday meeting.
It asks leaders to reconsider modeling library branches after a popular
book or music store while casting off books with lasting value.)

Sacramento (CA) Bee. May 23, 2007

http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/190564.html

Sacramento library staffers are circulating a petition of no-confidence
in management, decrying what they view as a departure from amassing a
rich research collection to pandering to the whims of the YouTube
generation. Librarians question administrators' selection of materials,
which include six copies of Paris Hilton's "Confessions of an Heiress"
autobiography and 10 copies of the film "Jackass 2." The dissenting
librarians plan to present the petition with 600 signatures from staff,
former staff and patrons to the library's board at a Thursday meeting.
It asks leaders to reconsider modeling library branches after a popular
book or music store while casting off books with lasting value.

            "The library should keep up with the changes, but not at the
expense of the written word," said Diane Boerman, a library employee and
shop steward for the librarians union.

            Library administration declined to comment, referring
questions to the library board chairman, county Supervisor Roger
Dickinson. Dickinson said concerns are being aired by a minority of
librarians who are resisting the library's efforts to modernize. "The
idea of the library as a cloistered hall where everyone whispers is
giving way to a place where people go read books, have conversations and
increasingly want audio-visual materials," Dickinson said. "I think this
is all part and parcel of what the public wants."

            The debate reflects a broader discussion of technology vs.
change in traditional bastions of learning. "I think library staffs all
over the country wrestle with 'what should we be?' " said Virginia
Walter, a professor of information studies at UCLA. "The debate is often
framed as quality vs. popularity. ... Public libraries have been
fretting about this for 100 years."

            The debate reached a crescendo in the 1990s, as libraries
wrestled with where Internet portals would be placed among the stacks.
Such tension surfaced in San Francisco in the late '90s as doors opened
to a $140 million main library that struck many patrons as a high-tech
departure from the literary bastion they had hoped for. San Francisco
librarians enlisted novelist Nicholson Baker to rail against changes
such as eschewing the card catalog and discarding old volumes. The fray
culminated in the resignation of City Librarian Kenneth Dowlin after
nearly a decade of service.

            Such discontent has now come to Sacramento's library
branches, 27 of which are operated by a joint-powers authority of
Sacramento County and its cities, except Folsom. A centerpiece of the
library system's modernization is the Carmichael Library, which has rows
of computers, a music listening area and a plasma television. "People
are asking, 'Why does the library have a TV when the library is the one
promoting reading and turning off the TV?' " said Steve Crouch, business
representative of the International Union of Operating Engineers, which
represents 61 of about 348 staff at the library. 

Terry Chekon, a librarian who retired in 2003, said the debate ranges
beyond a battle of tradition vs. change. It touches on how the change is
made. A case in point, Chekon said, was the redecoration of the Martin
Luther King Jr. branch with a Sacramento Kings motif. The decor came
after the Maloof Foundation donated computers to the branch. Chekon
calls it the "Maloofization" of the library: walls were painted purple
and cut-outs of the Kings' mascot Slamson adorned the walls. "You had
Slamson looking over the shoulder of a poster of Martin Luther King
Jr.," Chekon said with disgust.

            Library patron and volunteer Belva Seaberry signed the
petition as a protest against the decorating scheme. "It was excessive,
it was outrageous," she said, noting that library administrators brushed
off her concerns. 

Chekon said discontent began to brew when branch librarians lost their
freedom to pick out books for their branches. The decisions were made
instead by a committee based at the Central Branch downtown. "It takes
away something librarians enjoy doing," she said. Chekon said librarians
also were perturbed when lists of books to be "weeded" or cast off for
sales or donation came from administration. Previously, branch
librarians were in charge of choosing which books to discard.

            The changes came as librarians grew concerned over staffing
shortages, said Boerman, a clerk in the library's finance department.
The discontent ballooned as more people felt library executives didn't
listen to their concerns, she said. "They just feel that this
administration has a closed-door policy," Boerman said.

            Dickinson said he's seen no evidence that library managers
dismiss staff, noting that they worked closely with a librarian who
spoke out about library users viewing Internet pornography.

            Librarians began circulating their petition with the
intention of calling for the library's board -- comprising members of
the Sacramento City Council and county Board of Supervisors -- to oust
library director Anne Marie Gold. But Boerman said library staff
softened their approach and plan to ask the library board for an
independent review of their claims at a 3 p.m. meeting at Board of
Supervisors chambers, 700 H St.

            Board Chairman Dickinson was not optimistic about that
prospect. He said board members are likely to ask library administrators
to address concerns but unlikely to call for a special review. In the
big picture, he said the staff's concerns -- so far -- sound like those
you'd hear in any workplace adapting to new demands. "Almost inevitably,
when there's significant change that occurs in an organization, there's
discontent with people who have been generally satisfied with what
happened in the past," he said. "For the most part, that's what's
happened here."

Jimmie Epling, MLS

Regional Library Consultant

FIVCO/Big Sandy Regional Office

Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives

P.O. Box 370, 122 South Main Cross St. 

Louisa, KY 41230-0370

V: 606.638.4797  F:606.638.0586

jimmie.epling at ky.gov

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