md wrote:
This is a major victory for everyone in the community the Franklin Library serves... the library users,The move to save Franklin, Hosmer, and Sumner libraries as historical buildings began in the early 1980s. In 1980 Central neighborhood requested of the Historical Preservation Commission that Hosmer be designated a historical preservation site. It took until 1995 or so to acquire that designation. On the day CNIA's Pres. Maxie Turner sent me down to speak before the Commission on the neighborhood's behalf in the 90s, I had been preceded by another CNIA board member in the early 80s. At the hearing Kathleen Lamb, the City Council-appointed Library Board member, followed me to the speaker's position. She stood and boldly averred that the library's constituents did not want historical designation for any of the libraries. One of the commissioners pointed out that the constituents of Hosmer had just delivered a message to the contrary. The Council still re-appoints Lamb after each election.
librarians, library advocates and community activists.
Though no one, on that day, came to speak for either Franklin or Sumner, the HPC voted to preserve all three. Franklin and Sumner may have sent testimony to be entered into the record.
With the LGA budget cuts, several library renovations on tap, and the financial demands of the diva New Central Palace , does anyone doubt that closing the Franklin Library for good was considered?WM: There are more issues here than you have considered. Franklin Library is a mixed blessing in some ways. It is entirely hemmed in by new construction, renovation of a Catholic Charities building, and street pavement. It's size is woefully inadequate for the size of the population it must serve. (Phillips alone has 18,000 people, the West Bank/northwest Seward neighborhoods are so many thousands more). The roof of Franklin, a mammoth tile affair, was literally caving in and was being propped up with an item I think is called a ceiling jack. Many, many ceiling jacks. It cost a bundle to save the building at all. The $30 million in the referendum included attention to Franklin. The referendum read that the $30 million for community library renovations could not be put to the new central library. That Franklin had been allowed to get into that state was a passive aggressive way of closing it perpetrated over a span of several library boards.
On May 7th when Kit Hadley and the Library Board, andWM: Jeff Scherer and his co-architects will deserve those kudos. They did a terrific job on Hosmer. Kit Hadley and the library board will deserve a round of applause. It's really not fair to slam the library when they've done a good job.
R.T. Rybak, and architect Jeff Scherer, are smiling in the spotlight....
and P.R. machine is perkily generating kudos and gloating at itself...
However, your point that MPL might have closed Franklin (and Hosmer) is well taken. It is disappointing when I have overheard staff at the library talking about "those people don't read," referring to patrons of Hosmer, Franklin, and Sumner, in particular. The amount of patron- ignorant cant that permeates the agency culture of the MPL really sends me into paroxysms. Until 1997 (?) library practice at MPL was to under fund and under equip libraries in poor neighborhoods. Further, only half-hearted or wrong-headed attempts were made to suit the collections to the demographics of the 1.5 mile radius around those libraries. The assumption was that 'those people don't read,' when the actuality was 'those librarians are not building a collection to meet their patrons' needs.'
When the NRP flowed in, Central neighborhood pushed the envelope mighty hard, saying that it would put money into 'enhancements' for Hosmer, if the library would guarantee that the head librarian at Hosmer would make all the acquisition and programming decisions. Central, King Field, Powderhorn, Lyndale, Bryant, and Bancroft, Weed & Seed, and Merrill Anderson of Reachout put some $547,000 into Hosmer programming, computers, computer trainer, and collection up to around the end of 2003. (There's been more since, I'm not keeping count anymore.) The library bowed to that stipulation, but they were not happy to do so.
This arrangement has changed Hosmer from a 30,000 patron visits a year to a 180,000+ patron visits a year library, with the largest number of requests for items in its collection of the MPL system, won it an award from the NRP, brought in a film crew from PBS to document the changes, and better serve the community by leaps and bounds.
As the point person for Central neighborhood, I would not have undertaken such a massive effort had the library not assigned Roy Woodstrom as head librarian for Hosmer. He was the first librarian at Hosmer since I lived here (1973) who was willing to look at Hosmer's patrons without the blinders of agency culture.
It is the corporate culture of MPL which is preventing it from adequately serving the whole population of the city, not the downtown library's cost, not the money squeeze, nor anything else.
WizardMarks, Central ________________________________
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