[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
OK, I'd just like to say some words in defense of MPL, because I thinkYes, I do know that Niziolek and RT have arm twisted the MPL Board by saying they would not loose the money we voted for community libraries through the Library Referendum unless the MPL Board created this task force so that Niziolek can explore his idea of mixed use for the library. This is because the library sits on a spendy piece of property which is not collecting taxes. This is also a traditional Minneapolis approach to the historicity of its buildings--anything over 15 minutes old can be knocked down and rebuilt. This is made more complicated by the fact that the library has already lost to the historical commission by having to keep the old Walker Library historical, which limits it's salability, or so it is claimed. (I have huge doubts about that declaration.)
WM's remarks are not entirely fair. I'm not saying malicious, but I
don't think that they take into account the way the library functions
or Niziolek's intentions in the dual-use plan.
The city council representative on the MPL Board is Kathleen Lamb. She is the board member who argued at the historical commission hearing that MPL did not want any of it's Carnegie libraries designated as historical and that their constituency had so decreed. Since I had already argued for historical preservation for Hosmer at that same meeting at the behest of my neighborhood, the chair pointed out to Ms. Lamb that some of her constituency had just stated that they wanted historical designation for a community library and had been asking for it since about 1987.
My question: does that imply that the city council did not want to preserve historical buildings? or just historical libraries?
RT thinks he's in the position of having to squeeze blood out of a turnip at every turn. He appears to be willing to sacrifice highly important public space for another pile of potential shekels. Seeing the area of town in which the Walker finds itself, would it not be more thoughtful to consider the possibility of building an even bigger library on that site in future years, rather than passive-aggressively losing control of it now?
None of this, however, addresses internal flaws in library practice which make keeping community libraries open and adequately staffed linger in library limbo. Deployment of staff determines who can stay open for how many hours per week. The traditional argument has been that some community libraries are underutilized because the patrons are not there. Hosmer was one such. Franklin another.
However, when Hosmer proved decisively that the it was underutilized because MPL had not encouraged patronage (actually had actively discouraged it and still does to a certain extent) and that by presenting materials and programming that the neighborhoods using that branch needed, the patronage was there and would use the library, no efforts were made to examine other flagging community libraries in light of that discovery.
In the end, the library system looks fine to the casual visitor, but does not serve the citizenry as well as it can and should.
Dorie Gallagher was declaring that "we want our libraries open" in the post that I replied to. (My credentials in defense of MPL are well known.) I agree with Gallagher, I want our libraries open, but that cannot happen unless we thoroughly examine how staff are deployed and whether or not staff deployment serves MPL's constituency. I say it does not, nor has it for many years. That the most neglected libraries also mesh with less economically fortunate areas of the city is, I would argue, the primary reason for their neglect. It is not malicious, necessarily, but it is habitual and stems from the middle class perspective of library management. In the past, efforts to include a non-middle class perspective have been routinely rebuffed--and are to this very day.
As a result of all this, I consider Niziolek's initiative--to combine housing with the Walker library--a way of interfering with the work of the MPL board, the city council, and the mayor vis-a-vis libraries in Minneapolis.
I want the city to loose the referendum money to fix Walker and to find some other spot on which to exercise personal experiments.
WizardMarks, Central
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