The State of the DC Public Library Report 2007
The Extraordinary Will Take a Little Longer
Conflicting Interests and Some Suggestions for Harmony
DC Library Renaissance Project
1530 P Street, NW
Washington, DC 20005
202 387-8030
www.savedclibraires.org
June 22, 2007
Preface: Intentions
The DC Library Renaissance Project (LRP) was founded by Ralph Nader
in 2002 with the hopeful intention of helping “raise the DC Public
Library to a world class standard.” What LRP found was an agency so
deep in disarray that it could not even accept in-kind contributions
for repair and improvement of facilities. Then-library director Molly
Raphael had sought and welcomed the creation of the Project. However,
Raphael left DCPL in 2003. Trustees did not “permanently” fill the
position for the next three years.
This report comes of four years closely observing and interacting
with officials, staff, and users of the DC Public Library (DCPL) as the
institution struggled to embark on a process of revitalization such as
had already been undertaken and achieved in many cities across the
United States.
As LRP encountered at first hand the challenges of transforming
DCPL, we looked for ways to foster change collaboratively. But a
demoralized and defensive staff -- devoid of leadership, and paralyzed
by an inert and thin-skinned Board of Trustees -- increasingly
disdained our offers of information, advice, proposals, pro-bono
services and volunteer aid. In January 2007, DCPL’s Director of
External Affairs and Partnerships, whose job description included
liaison to our Project, left in frustration. Evidently, she will not be
replaced.
Motivated still by the original intent of helping improve DCPL, our
organization has intentionally reinvented itself as a watchdog group
whose mission is to “seek out, represent, and protect the public
interest in the library.” Thus today, Library Renaissance Project has
no official relationship with DCPL, but remains committed to helping to
achieve an outstanding municipal library system for the citizens of the
District of Columbia, through advocacy activities and supporting
volunteer efforts.
A year ago, we published a response1
to the draft report of the Mayor’s Blue Ribbon Task Force on Libraries.
The Mayor’s draft report had been issued at the request of former city
council Library Committee Chair Kathy Patterson prior to citywide
Library Listening Sessions seeking public input. Our new report looks
at DCPL over the course of an agonizing year of bitter divisions, with
much left to resolve, but it ends with reason to hope that resolutions
will be found. We, at least, will continue to seek them.
Though we had very little direct access to top staff and Trustees, we have tried to be fair. We welcome corrections.
Robin Diener
Director
202/387-8030
rdiener@savedclibraries.org
Introduction: DC Libraries in Context
The problems that have plagued the DC Public Library (DCPL) for
decades are mostly city-wide problems that affect many DC
agencies. Library “transformation” will be closely watched for what it
can offer as a model. In particular, DCPL has much in common with the
schools: their educational mission, their need to deliver retail public
service on a daily basis, and their extensive and valuable property
holdings.
The hue and cry surrounding a young new mayor’s attempt to take over
the public schools this spring echoes the acrimony and divisiveness
surrounding schemes for library transformation. Everyone agrees that
transformation of both schools and libraries is desperately needed. Yet
these most urgent of civic responsibilities remain unfulfilled.
Recent successes2
opening up the Library Trustees closed proceedings are shedding some
light on their development decision making, but all proposals for
private development of public land will continue to meet with suspicion
from members of the public who consider that the sale of public land is
always a giveaway.
Why shouldn’t the public be suspicious? Years after the city’s
vaunted economic turnaround and throughout years of sustained growth,
the schools and libraries have received no benefit. Instead, in the
Library’s case, four branches -- closed to be rebuilt -- had their
plans canceled by the Trustees (at a cost of $3 million in design fees)
and remain empty today; no new libraries were built or even planned
in that time; and the system went without a permanent director for three years.
What did occur during the economic upswing was the convening of a
Mayoral Task Force on the Future of the Library (at a cost of $750,000
in public funding). That Task Force now looks to have been a
smokescreen for the passage by City Council, unanimously, of the
Library Enhancement and Development (LEAD) Act.3 The LEAD Act mandated another task force to create a strategic plan identifying public/private partnerships to fund system renewal.
Apparently, City Council was convinced by real estate and business
interests that -- during the best economic times the city has ever seen
-- irreplaceable public assets needed to be sold off in order to pay
for the most basic government services. Although the LEAD Act has yet
to be used, it seems to require that DCPL try to develop its properties through public/private partnerships.
One explanation for the LEAD Act’s passage is the currently popular
notion that all resources must be maximized or “monetized.” But the
practice of monetizing schools, libraries, and parks in order to
continue to provide them is fundamentally flawed. It is simply not
possible to quantify the value to the human psyche of green space,
sunlight, and air. The significance of a prominent, free-standing,
architecturally significant school or library building cannot be
measured. Mixed-use that is consistent with or enhances the library
mission, and that individual communities approve, can generate revenue
streams through leasing, but the public should retain ownership. Under
extraordinary circumstances, public stewards may consider a change in
disposition of a public property, but they cannot ethically do so in
the absence of a process that ensures meaningful public consultation is
had and maximum value obtained.
Unfortunately, no process exists for public input into consideration
of changes in the use of public property in DC. The Mayor has total
discretion to “surplus” a building or property and broad latitude to
make changes in disposition, including sale, without requiring a
competitive process. In addition, enforcement of terms of sale is
notoriously lacking. The promise of public benefits, on which many
deals are touted, almost always go unfulfilled in spite of contractual
bonds.
To make matters worse, Library Trustees this spring adopted a
hands-off policy with regard to mixed-use development, eviscerating
their responsibility to evaluate the feasibility and desirability of
such proposals, and leaving the public without a library professional
at the table to represent them. This doesn’t seem consistent with the
Trustees having lobbied hard for the passage of the LEAD Act.
Evidently, they have decided to leave it to developers to win over the
community through public relations campaigns, rather than perform the
due diligence required. The Trustees, after all, are volunteers and
they may have felt burned by the public ire that erupted last fall over
proposals for the central library and for Benning -- one of the closed
libraries.
Now, after so many years without a professional at the helm, DC has
finally got the skilled manager it needs for transformation. Chief
Librarian Ginnie Cooper comes to DC with a record of building
buildings. She has several times stated that public/private development
projects with which she has been involved elsewhere around the country
did not always result in better value for the library.4 Cooper would appear to be an ideal person to evaluate these matters for the public library.
Still needed, however, is the corollary process of thoroughgoing and
meaningful community consultation. Development of this process,
combined with the skills of a qualified professional, would give us the
elements needed for transformation as well as a potential model for
other city undertakings.
Reinventing Reinvention: A Work Plan for Everyone
There is no model for wholly reinventing an entire library system.
Contrary to the meaning suggested by the phrase “best practices,” which
the 2005 Blue Ribbon Task Force on Libraries was charged with studying
and recommending for DCPL, library systems that have upgraded in recent
years were already functioning adequately or better. The DC Library,
however, is perceived to be the worst major library system in the
country.
Since her arrival in late July 2006, Chief Cooper has spoken about
the difficulty of recruiting new staff into such a dire situation. The
system must be completely reinvented, but that will be difficult
without the ability to attract talent. Cooper, a straight speaking
realist and a quick study, also frequently remarks that she cannot fix
things piecemeal. In order to do any one thing, she must bring the
system to higher functionality across the board. Her acknowledgement of
difficulties shows her to be an honest caretaker.
In less than a year Cooper has made significant progress (see
Cooper’s Performance below). Yet, that progress, hasn’t rescued DCPL
from the deep hole the Trustees dug: they allowed four libraries to be
closed for rebuilding in spite of public criticism of the plans,
cancelled the plans and failed to provide interim services. Then, they
supported a DC Dept of Housing study about the feasibility of building
affordable housing over the closed Benning library without ever having
broached the idea with the community, leading local residents to
believe that a deal had already been arranged behind their backs. The
housing plan was dropped but the Benning community remains mistrustful.
Hope for DCPL lies with Cooper, a seasoned professional who seems to
be passionate about the library mission, especially serving
children. She has been at pains to encourage and give credit to the
Trustees, but she must educate them about the mission of a public
library. Libraries can take some lessons from business practices
generally, and specifically from the bookstore business specifically
with which they have had to compete. But libraries are not businesses,
and certainly not bookstores. The mission of the library is not to be
profitable but to be of service as the provider of equal access to
information.
Mandated processes for inclusion of citizens in planning and
development in DC are notoriously pro forma. Cooper has outlined a
top-down planning model of three steps that promises more of the same.
We strongly recommend against this. It is identical to what was done in
2004, resulting in unpopular plans that were eventually canceled.
The first such session of Cooper’s tenure, held last month in
Anacostia, optimistically christened “Hopes and Dreams,” was a
run-of-the-mill focus group that provided no written information, no
takeaways for further thought, and no agenda for another meeting.5
It was further discouraging to learn that she has hired the same
consultants who wrote the Mayor’s Blue Ribbon Task Force report.6
Cooper remarked that she learned from the meeting that the community
really wants computers, which seemed uncharacteristically disingenuous.
After all, the American Library Association’s 2007 State of America’s Libraries Report7
just announced that computer users are driving increased library use.
And in fact, Cooper has just finished installing a much needed new
computer lab at the central library.
We recommend a truly consultative community planning effort. It
should be led by parties such as the DC League of Women Voters, the
Friends groups at each branch library, and ANC Commissioners. DCPL’s
Library professionals would develop RFP’s that reflected community
needs, and send them out for bid. We strongly recommend against the
top-down process unsuccessfully forced on residents in Benning.
Such a process could begin immediately at the four closed libraries
and be deployed later to all neighborhood branches and the central
library. This would also give Cooper some breathing space to focus on
the internal improvements she has begun at DCPL, and which are as
important to a world class library system as any buildings -- in fact,
more so.
Cooper’s Performance: Mostly Building Momentum, a Few Missteps
Since her arrival late last summer, new Chief Librarian Ginnie
Cooper has delivered three bookmobiles and opened two interim
facilities (with two more to come online any day). She also oversaw a
“makeover” of the Southeast branch library, an original Carnegie
library designed by architect Edward Tilton. The makeover is
compliments of Library Journal, but DCPL provided bathroom renovations
that had been promised for years. To have accomplished these feats,
must be counted as a measure of her ability to work around the system,
or perhaps even to change it.
The public likes her direct style and engaging manner. In the words
of one Friends group President, “Ginnie Cooper inspires confidence and
hope.”
A terrible fire erupted at the Georgetown branch library on April
30, 2007. It was doubly devastating since the fire occurred just as
long awaited historic renovations were getting underway. But DCPL’s
response was swift and competent: grants were obtained from the Library
of Congress and National Endowment for the Humanities to pay for the
restoration of Peabody Room artifacts. In the wake of the fire,
Georgetown Friends of the Library met with library leadership. One
appreciative member of the Friends said “we are used to thinking of
DCPL as being held together by duct tape. You guys really know what you
are doing.”
This compliment is all the more striking as the observation of an emergency response.
Cooper’s team had a chance to act outside of the box. Their quick
reaction to a situation out of the ordinary was reassuring, even if
excellence on a daily basis remains a challenge.
Cooper’s staffing plan seems to be to put in place and directly
train her own teams site by site. The pressing need to open four
interim libraries provides the opportunity to do that. Her hands-on
approach flies in the face of the business school model of delegating
for hyper efficiency, especially when the Chief’s attention is needed
in so many places at once. But LRP endorses her method.
Leading by example is powerful. DCPL has been criticized for a lack
of customer service and even basic civility. When, after a two year
survey of DCPL, the DC League of Women Voters this spring issued its
library position statement,8 it felt compelled to state that library users had a right to expect librarians to be courteous.
Cooper has tapped a few, very few, individuals at DCPL for top
positions. Her inner circle consists mostly of people from outside
DCPL. New blood surely was in order for a poorly operating system like
DCPL, but bloodletting is an unpleasant affair. Staffers were not
encouraged either, when instructed not to approach Cooper directly, but
to clear everything through her designated intermediaries. This
distancing lowered morale, and many staffers, who had looked forward to
the arrival of a nationally renowned library professional, felt let
down.
Cooper’s very first initiative was a visit to each branch, which was
highly welcome, and she has been out in the community extensively ever
since, addressing Friends groups, civic associations, and
ANC’s. However, since those initial visits some branch librarians
report being as isolated as ever. The sense among staff at the central
library, too, is that Cooper is always sequestered or off site.
Throughout the fall of 2006 she spent a lot of time lobbying for former
Mayor Williams’ ill-fated new central library. The recent hiring of a
new Director of Neighborhood Libraries can be expected to make a
difference soon. Also, Cooper recently introduced “stand ups,” open to
all staff, where we understand that she explains her vision, shares
news, and answers questions. Prior to the stand-ups, there had not been
a system-wide staff meeting.
One continuing problem: an underperforming personnel department does
not seem to be getting revamped, and many position remained unfilled.
Focusing on personnel policies and procedures would seem to be in
order. At-will staff has not received performance reviews in years.
Cooper herself has said that staff training is needed, and a new
computer lab is being used, at least part of the time, to train staff
in technology.
Cooper has many of concrete accomplishments to her credit since her arrival:
- Improved system accountability in reports to the Trustees;
- Monthly “News from Ginnie Cooper” to the Federation of Friends groups;
- Assessment
and action taken on longstanding issues of maintenance including
outdated elevators, that by all accounts never worked properly, and
climate control systems, that in some cases appear never to have had
standard preventative maintenance performed at all. Several elevators
have been returned to service;
- Installation of wifi system-wide;
- Delivery and putting into operation of three bookmobiles;
- Opening of interim libraries in Tenley and Anacostia, with pending opening of interim libraries in Benning and Shaw;
- Brightening of MLK’s Great Hall through repair of light fixtures;
- De-cluttering of the glass curtain windows of MLK at street level;
- A homelessness education initiative with staff.
Three issues concern us strongly.
Cooper’s vision, as she outlines it, emphasizes services to
children. Public libraries have always had a mission to children but
not to the exclusion of adults. Adult users are the backbone of the
Library. They support it as voters, as Friends and donors, and through
the essential example they provide of the value of reading. More
thought needs to be articulated around services to regular adult users.
Adult literacy has concerned this Project since its inception. Much
has already been written about our ongoing efforts to have DCPL
increase its role. DCPL is different from most urban library systems,
in that it does not deliver direct service. A panoply of non-profits,
churches and other educational agencies in the city field referrals
from DCPL. A concerted effort is needed, however, to bring more
services to more neighborhoods. We think DCPL could do this simply by
enlisting these agencies to avail themselves of underutilized space in
neighborhood libraries. We have been told over the last three years
that DCPL has its own vision and will provide a plan to expand
services. We continue to wait. Recently Cooper announced that a focus
group of providers is scheduled, and under her leadership that may be
good news. However, an earlier focus group three years ago did not
result in a vision or a plan.
The last issue we are concerned about is a puzzling one in light of
Cooper’s ample political skills. Substantial bequests to two
neighborhood libraries had for many years remained inaccessible, held
by the DCPL Foundation. Cooper early agreed to address the matter.
Although she eventually did so, it was by changing the terms of the
bequest, with permission of the estate but before consulting the
communities concerned. At least one of the two groups was outraged by
being left out. Their sense was that the money would permanently serve
to amplify the appearance of DCPL Foundation reserves, while being
parceled out in the form of annual interest to the community it was
intended to uplift. Cooper’s change to the terms of the bequest might
well have been accepted by the community had they been informed of it
first, but instead has exacerbated an already troubling situation.
Central Library
In March 2006, shortly after the LEAD Act was passed into law,
legislation appeared in the proposed Budget Act of then-Mayor Williams
to authorize the lease of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library
(MLK), the flagship central library of the District of Columbia, in
order to fund the construction of a smaller new central library. A
bitter public battle over the fate of MLK then ensued. The fight was
little understood by the public at large and epitomized everything that
is wrong with processes in DC.
In the end, nothing was won. The building was saved as a library –
at least for the moment – but without any provision for the renovation
the Mies van der Rohe designed building desperately needs.
Cooper’s participation in promoting a new central library was
problematic. Not only was she newly hired by and answerable to the
Trustees, who already supported a new central library, but never having
worked at MLK, and not having been on hand long enough to have earned
the public trust, her testimony was necessarily suspect.
Now that Mayor Williams has left office, the drive for a new central
library can be diverted into improving the branch libraries, for which
the DC Council has budgeted $180 million. Now is the time for an
orderly but wide ranging consideration of options for a renovated MLK
and other central library proposals.
A new hope now exists for establishing some facts in the
case: freshly elected city council member Harry Thomas has said he will
commission a new study of the cost of renovation. He has also agreed to
consider legislation to amend the LEAD Act to require a period of
public consultation and binding public review of developer proposals.
Pressuring the Trustees to do the Right Thing
In a recent article in Library Journal, Norman Oder reports
that Library Trustee President John Hill has "little time for
criticism" from the Library Renaissance Project. Whether or not Hill
has time for our Project, DCPL has adopted many of our suggestions --
from holding "open" committee meetings, to using volunteers to do
"fix-ups," to inviting back to the board table the President of the
Federation of Friends of the Library, whom Hill had previously,
publicly, and inexplicably asked to step down.
So while the Trustees see us as adversaries, we take heart that many
of our public-interest actions are having an effect, or being adopted,
even if the Trustees prefer not to admit it: the ill-considered central
library legislation was defeated, the community in Benning rose up
against a mixed-use development it did not support, and now Cooper says
she will be looking at adult literacy and has invited us to
participate. District citizens brought all these issues to the fore;
our Project has merely helped to apply pressure.
In our response to the Blue Ribbon Task Force report last spring, we
touched briefly on conflict-of-interest concerns as contributing to an
atmosphere of mistrust. We can no longer maintain a light touch.
Accepted standards regarding conflict of interest require the Trustees to avoid even
the appearance
of a questionable situation. With the President of the Trustees, John
Hill, we are beyond mere appearances. The organization of which he
serves as CEO, the Federal City Council (FCC), is a discreet but
powerful businessman’s network that works largely behind the scenes,
with a membership that is heavy on developers, construction firms, and
real estate companies.
A number of former Federal City Council staff and associates are now
in positions of influence over the large real estate holdings of the
schools and libraries, including the FCC’s former education specialist
Victor Reinoso who has been appointed the Deputy Mayor of Education by
the new mayor. Hill himself sits on the board of EdBuild, which
describes itself as “an entrepreneurial nonprofit founded in
partnership with local education, business and policy leaders.”9
A former EdBuild board member Kaya Henderson was chosen by the new
mayor as Vice Chancellor of the schools. Are people associated with
Hill the only ones willing to take on the tasks of governing DC? Why,
for instance, are there no prominent appointees from the think tanks
around DC in this alleged search for new solutions?
From his comments, Hill seems to have a keen intellectual interest
in the fate of libraries (and schools). If his interest is genuine, he
should understand that the appropriate way to be involved is from a
seat on DCPL’s Foundation, or other entity, with at least a modicum of
distance from the decision making responsibilities of the Trustees.
Things as they stand now are too close for comfort.
The education world is awash with idealistic talk of character and
standards. Let the adults in the room demonstrate their understanding
of standards for the avoidance of conflict-of-interest. We’re not
saying that Hill or his people have done anything that is in conflict,
or that they intend to. It just looks like it.
Forward with all Deliberate Speed
DCPL has now, after decades of decline and a series of false starts,
come to an exciting place. The LEAD Act and pending changes in
procurement authority may provide some agility to address the problems
of DC's lumbering bureaucracy, but such agility can be slippery and
dangerous. Concurrent experiments in new solutions to government
inertia, such as the mayoral "takeover" of the schools in DC, are
making many nervous and others angry when processes are ignored or
violated. In this highly charged atmosphere,
truly terrible battles will continue to occur. DCPL has an
opportunity to unite neighborhoods across the city in the common
purpose of transformation.
It is tempting to let Ginnie Cooper do all the work now that she is
here and proving very capable. Cooper, for her part, is anxious to
respond to pent up desire for action by moving as rapidly as possible.
But until useful processes of consultation are put in place, the public
will have to be on guard, to monitor development, and to demand the
best.
Moreover, four interims and a fleet of bookmobiles do not come
cheaply even if they come late. Every interim has four to five times
the number of working computers the closed libraries had; they may be
glorified trailers, but they are bright, clean, and fully functioning.
All are well stocked with new books and can provide access to material
from the central library collections within a day. They are hardly the
libraries of the 21st century we have been promised, but they are an
improvement over the degraded facilities that were closed for
rebuilding two and a half years ago. The millions of dollars expended
on bookmobiles and trailers should also to buy us the time necessary to
develop the process of collaborative planning needed to ensure value
and excellence.
Trustees and council members have only recently recognized the
urgency of repairing and restoring the Library. They should not now use
it as an excuse to rush forward with hasty plans without considering
the full range of options. They should not accept proposals without
seeking competitive bids. They should not build neighborhood libraries
without involving neighborhood residents in meaningful consultation.
A six- or eight-month process of comprehensive community planning
could be executed at no cost to taxpayers by a wealth of partners: the
DC League of Women Voters, The Committee of 100 of the Federal City,
and The Washington Architectural Foundation, to name a very few.
Genuine and inclusive planning processes in each library community
would create anticipation (and draw in patrons), inspire confidence in
the system, and renew civic zeal. Citizen oversight needs to be
developed to ensure that the library is allowed to languish again that
way it has in DC over the last decades.
Based on her track record elsewhere, and judging from the interims
she has delivered against all odds, Ginnie Cooper will provide working
libraries on schedule.
One ANC official lamented that if residents have to give up air
rights in order to get a new library, they should receive an
extraordinary library as a result, not just a replacement.
What are needed -- what we deserve as elected officials are
so fond of telling us -- are extraordinary libraries, and we should not
have to ransom the public wealth to build them. Extraordinary libraries
will take a little longer, but they should be the first priority of a
civilized city.
Afterword
People sometimes ask, "How could this have happened in the nation's
capital of all places?" These questioners forget, or perhaps don't
know, that the nation's capital is a peculiar place. The capital of the
free world is not itself free, having never been granted full
self-government. This anomalous city-state is hobbled by Presidential
and Congressional interference, so no one should be surprised that
things don't function well here.
By virtue of its manageable size and its presence in every
community, the library is the perfect town hall. In its mission to
provide unfettered access to information and sanctuary to ideas, the
library embodies democracy. The library already serves both as the
physical place where the community gathers to consider ideas, as well
as the repository of ideas to
fuel that consideration.
Much change will be needed to achieve the 21st century library that
has been promised by mayors and council members, trustees and chief
librarians. That change will have to include improvement to the process
itself, changes in how we govern and are governed in the District of
Columbia. Perhaps by achieving a 21st century library, we might also
achieve for DC 18th century rights.
Addendum
The Difficulty of Having a Discussion
Our Project has tried to engage the Trustees and staff of DCPL in
meaningful exchanges of ideas throughout the year covered in this
report, but our efforts often receive a cold shoulder at the highest
level, which in turn has a chilling effect on others from whom we have
sought to learn about Library activities:
- In January 2005, the Board of Library Trustees
rejected our Project’s offer of a grant for community planning from the
Washington Architectural Foundation;
- In September 2006, the President of Library
Trustees John Hill cut off an email conversation -- after two rounds --
about his decision to request of the President of the Federation of
Friends of the Library to step down from the Board, although Hill later
reversed his position;
- In Jan 2007 Hill and Cooper refused to meet
with groups such as ours and the Committee of 100, who opposed the sell
off of MLK last fall, but amicably sought to reach some common ground
about options for the central library;
- And most recently, in April, Hill refused to
"play this game" of responding to an email cc'd to council members and
Friends asking when DCPL committee meetings would be opened to the
public as had been promised. A tactic like cc'ing can be rude but it
got the job done: in May committee meetings were opened to the public
for the first time, winning kudos from the Washington Post editorial
board who praised the Trustees for stepping forward into the sunlight.
Footnotes:
1 Blueprint for Cynicism http://www.savedclibraries.org/index.php?/categories/3-More-Info
2 Editorial board, “Welcome Sunshine: The D.C. Library Board is right to open its meetings,” Washington Post, May 24, 2007, A30.
3 http://www.dccouncil.washington.dc.us/images/00001/20060113144639.pdf
4 Ian Thoms, “Residents still seeking details on plans for Janney, library,” Dupont Current, June 20, 2007.
5 LRP notes from the Anacostia session
http://www.librarydynamo.org/read.php/dynamos/anacostia/
6 Two
years in the writing, the report was finally rushed out unheralded on
the eve of a city council committee vote about the central library. The
report has gone unnoticed in the press.
7 www.ala.org/2007State
8 Library Statement DC League of Women Voters 2007
9 http://www.edbuild.org/
LIBRARY
DYNAMOS