Yes, the library cuts are devastating. You cannot cut $4 mil out of a $22 mil budget in one year and not have it be a disaster when simultaneously you have passed a referendum to repair, refurbish, and/or build 14 community and a central library. It cannot be done. To make the cheese absurdly binding, this trail will not net results that meet the goals the library has to meet to remain authentic to the spirit in which this country undertook the idea of educating the public through libraries--and that was the point of creating a public library system.
The solution chosen by the board is typical of a board wanting to be fair to everyone and winding up being unfair to everyone, themselves included. Two guys walk into the county economic assistance office and explain to the staff that they need shoes. One wears a size nine, the other wears a size 11. Staff person walks in the back room but has neither size. He/She gives each man a pair of size 10 shoes, figuring to split the difference equally. That's how the library board voted last night.
Let's propose an entirely different scenario throughout: (mind you, this is off into the blue and does not take into consideration the woes concomitant with trying to switch scenarios in mid-stream).
We radically rethink central library and, begging very humbly, I mean humble, to redesign central as a smaller building for business, research library, gov. docs., municipal library, and special collections site. Services like technical services, cataloging, etc. move to a lower expense district, not necessarily downtown. Downtown popular library becomes a computer request/delivery service with a staffed desk..
Two libraries, Webber Park and Washburn, become a pilot project of how city and county could work together, an experiment folks have been asking for.
Five libraries become a unit: Hosmer, Franklin, Sumner, North Regional, and East Lake. This would require that we accept the fact that there is no way to make the current Franklin Library serve the needs of that population (18,000 plus because it has to include Eliot Park and part of both the West Bank and Seward). (Sumner is closed for remodeling and Franklin needs a new building, though the roof still has to be replaced. Things have so improved on Franklin Ave. that with a new roof selling Franklin to someone willing to obey historical dictum is there looking for that opportunity. I think the old Walker could be sold the same way.) With the money saved from central being smaller in hand, build a new community library in Phillips, on Franklin that can also house technical services, cataloging, security, whatever, whatever.
Use the $4 mil you have left to plug the deficit.
Choose the libraries to close out of those remaining and move on.
I'd be more than happy to hear from librarians on this fantasy, whether they are MPL librarians or any other library.
WizardMarks, Central
TEMPORARY REMINDER: 1. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. 2. If you don't like what's being discussed here, don't complain - change the subject (Mpls-specific, of course.)
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