(12/02/03) At the December 2 Library Commission
meeting, Ginna Ondricek reported on the first meeting of newly formed Forest
Park Branch Advisory Committee which met on December 1 under
the chairmanship of Jeanne Kaiser of Fountain Street. The committee, comprised
of 10 or 12 neighbors, wants to cooperate with the commission and library administration
on projects such as building a ramp into the building and sprucing up the community
room, and encouraging library volunteers. Library manager Reggie Wilson attended
the meeting and outlined his goals for the next year. The Branch Advisory Committee's
next meeting will be held on Monday, January 5, 2004.
(10/21/03) At its October 21 meeting, the
Library Commission discussed conflicts between the city Library Department and
Springfield Museums at the Quadrangle (a.k.a. the Springfield Library and Museums
Association) over Central Library operations and a misleading letterhead being
used by the Association.
Issues include location of book return boxes and the responsibility for emptying
them, parking lot attendants employed by the SLMA having been forbidden to continue
bringing daily papers across State Street to the library, handicap parking,
the impact on library access of having a single open gate in the Quadrangle's
new iron fence, and Association letterhead erroneously including the "Springfield
Library" as one of its components despite the fact that the city assumed
control of the entire Springfield library system on July 1.
Library Commission chairman Patrick Markey emphasized that the city does control
the libraries and that, should the Association not cooperate with the Library
Department, its $1.2 million in unrestricted allocation from the city budget
may be withheld, saying that preliminary discussions with city officials responsible
for doing so have already taken place.
Markey was equally clear on the matter of handicap parking, saying, "This
[library] absolutely has to be accessible. The law is on our side. ADA [Americans
with Disabilities Act] guidelines are very specific. This is an area of the
law with which I am very familiar from my work at the Department of Justice."
Markey will call a meeting with Association trustee chairman Mike Wallace, Al
Chwalak of the city's Department of Public Works, and Association president
Joe Carvalho.
For more information, including a summary of Markey's visit to the McKnight
Neighborhood Council and an assessment of the Library Commission and commissioners,
click on "Library Commission
Meeting Summaries."
(10/08/03) Pat Markey wrested
some more library services out of Henry Thomas and the Urban League last night.
They are as follows:
The MS library will be open 4 additional hours per week funded by the Annie
Curran trust, and what's more, these will be Saturday hours!
Library computers with internet access, word processing capability, library
catalogs and Microsoft products as well as study tables in the Urban League
space will be accessible to the public during Urban League office hours.
This means that library and computer/study space hours at Mason Square will
look like this:
Monday: 9-5 library hours
Tuesday: Library closed, but computers and study tables accessible 9-5
Wednesday: 9-5 library hours
Thursday: 11-7 library hours (note the evening hours)
Friday: Library closed, but computer and study tables accessible 9-5
Saturday: 9-5 library hours
Still to be negotiated: signage (the UL will remove the "Springfield City
Library" sign over the door and move the Annie Curran scroll inside the
building) and whether or not the Library Department will pay part of the utility
cost of the building.
Let's all send thank-you emails to Pat Markey at markeyjenn@aol.com for a job
well done and figure out a way to support him when he goes back to duke it out
with Henry Thomas on signage and utility bills!
Branch manager of the Forest Park library will be Reggie Wilson, veteran reference librarian with twenty years of service at the Central Library and former branch manager of the Mason Square branch who was laid off by the SLMA in July of 2002! Reggie will resume his duties running Mason Square and take on East Forest Park's storefront branch as well, but says that his major focus will be Forest Park. He is enthusiastic about neighborhood plans for a re-opening event, a neighborhood branch advisory committee, and up-grading the Forest Park physical plant, particularly making it handicapped accessible. An avid do-it-yourselfer and gardener, Reggie is already making plans to roll up his sleeves and get started sprucing things up in our main reading room just as soon as work is finished laying the new carpet. Welcome, Reggie!
(9/09/03): Library Commissions seem to have hit their stride at their meeting last Tuesday (September 9). No sooner was the meeting called to order and new commission Jerold J. Duquette of Gillette Avenue welcomed, than they got right down to business. Commissioner Webb read a draft mission statement stressing responsiveness "to community needs and concerns." The draft mission statement will be posted in its entirety at www.springfieldlibrary.org.
Library director Bader announced plans for rehiring former staff, hiring new staff and announced that re-opening of the four closed branch libraries will now pushed back to late October. Postponement will allow for the posting and advertising time tables required by law as well as a period of training and orientation for new and returning staff. Library volunteers will be utilized and recruited once staff is on the job.
The Library Department will also be compiling a mailing list (both email and
snail mail) of citizens interested in library issues. To get on the list go
to www.springfieldlibrary.org, click under Library Commission Asks for Citizen
Input on Branch Days and Hours, and fill in your contact information at the
bottom of the form.
Twelve citizens from 6 branches made suggestions regarding preferred days and
hours for libraries to be open. Library Director Bader also held up a stack
of forms submitted by readers of the Sunday newspaper. Speakers felt libraries
ought to be open on Saturdays when most people could use them but not on Mondays
because so many library days would be lost to three-day weekends. Most speakers
wanted library hours to meet the needs of students and young people while keeping
in mind the needs of older patrons for some times when libraries would be less
hectic than they sometimes are after school. (To read the 2002 UMass study of
days and hours of library operation preferred by a random sample of Springfield
residents, go to www.springfieldlibrary.org.)
Library commissioners seem to have found a way to operate which allows them comfortably to hear and respond to priorities expressed by the public.
Click on Library Commission Meeting Summaries for details. The next library commission meeting will be held on Tuesday, September 23.
Pat Markey says that we are looking at a weekly library hours
schedule of 24 hours. I have put together a draft
of a schedule for our branch with hours based on preferences expressed by
a random sample of neighborhood residents in their 2002 UMass study. Citywide,
Saturday was the preferred day for libraries to be open, so, in drawing this
schedule up, I started with as many Saturday hours as possible, and backed up
from there. Please let me hear from you about how this schedule would work for
your family.
The exact number of hours may change slightly, because if rehiring red tape
or completion of the modest physical plant improvements (e.g. new rug, interior
paint job) planned for the FP branch take longer than expected, there may be
funds available for slightly longer hours. (It's a trade-off: slightly longer
hours for slightly fewer weeks or this schedule for more weeks.)
Copies of the UMass study may be obtained from library commission chair Pat
Markey.
FOREST PARK LIBRARY TO RE-OPEN.
The Forest Park Branch Library is slated to re-open four days per week in late September or early October with new carpeting, an improved heating system, and, best of all, longer hours!
KEEP LIBRARY GROUNDS CLEAN.
In the meantime, everyone in the neighborhood needs to help keep the library grounds and sidewalks free of litter. Please ask young people not to throw soda cans or snack packages on the lawn, sidewalk or curbside. If you own or work in a store that sells these items, please post a notice to this effect. If, as you walk past the library, you see litter on the lawn, the steps or sidewalk, please put it in the trash cans on either side of the library's front steps. Over the summer neighborhood volunteers have pitched in to plant and tend flowers, mow the library lawn, pick up and remove trash. Please help them take care of our precious neighborhood library by eliminating litter! Thank-you very much.
DO YOU HAVE SUGGESTIONS ABOUT THINGS THE FOREST PARK LIBRARY SHOULD DO DIFFERENTLY?
If you have suggestions about how the Forest Park library could better meet the needs of our community, call or email Library Commission Chairman Patrick Markey at 746-5512 or markeyjenn@aol.com. He is very interested in your ideas and will present them to the library commission which meets in the second floor hearing room in city hall at 5:30pm on alternate Tuesdays. The next meeting will be Tuesday, August 26. If you have time, come see them in action.
DO YOU WANT TO HELP CLEAN UP
THE LIBRARY BUILDING BEFORE IT OPENS OR JOIN A NEIGHBORHOOD ADVISORY COMMITTEE
FOR THE FOREST PARK LIBRARY?
If you would like to work with your neighbors to help clean up the inside of the library building in preparation for its re-opening or if you would like to join them in forming a committee to work with branch library staff on finding ways the library could better serve our community, please call or email Sheila McElwaine at 788-8898
BECOME A LIBRARY VOLUNTEER.
If you would like to help out the Forest Park branch library by volunteering to help shelve books, tidy up or do other jobs to make librarians' lives easier, call Sheila McElwaine at 788-8898 to get a volunteer registration form. Or sign up on the Forest Park Civic Association website www.forestparkca.com; click on "Sign-up to be a Library Volunteer."
Well, at least Foley didn't agonize TOO long about how hard
it was to make a decision, although he and Dominic Sarno fell all over themselves
thanking the Library Study Committee and the Library Commission for their fine
work, blah blah.
The Mass. Board of Library Commissioners, in light of the state's fiscal crisis,
has revised the standard by which cuts in local library appropriations are judged
to be disproportionate to other cuts in municipal appropriations. This year's
standard requires that the cut in library spending must not be greater than
5% of the average cut in services citywide. This means that in order to get
state library funding and remain certified, Springfield must restore $335,000
of the $500,000 originally cut by Bill Foley from the library appropriation.
Foley, and by extension the committee, agreed to recommend the $335,000 figure
to the city council. Library Commission chair Pat Markey intends to fight for
the entire $500,000 at the city council level, but he politely thanked Foley
for having restored the cuts.
So, we're off the hook in terms of being decertified or being ineligible for
state funded or administered grants!
In answer to a question, Pat said that libraries will probably be open about
four days per week, noting that this represented a huge improvement over the
one day they were open last year.
Tuesday, July 29 was an active day for Springfield library activists.
At the noontime dedication of the newly renovated central library, it was definitely
a case of the Hatfields mixing uneasily with the McCoys while those with enough
hope and energy left over after the past few months spoke hopefully of new beginnings.
Some library staff welcomed the public into their bright, new space, while others
were as closed, evasive and defensive as ever. It is clear that changing the
institutional culture of the Springfield library system will be a big job, requiring
several years, and lots of patience and persistence on the part of citizen activists!
SLMA big wigs (Starr, Carvalho, Dunbar and D'Amour) clustered protectively together
with the mayor, laughing and whispering among themselves during many of the
little speeches. Emily Bader did a graceful job as mistress of ceremonies. Library
Commission member Jennifer Dugan Murphy was present, flanked (for some reason)
by her mother and husband, and Commissioner Grisel Gonzalez appeared for the
first time.
At 5:00 PM the Library Commission met in city hall. A respectable group of faithful,
well-informed and outspoken library activists was present, asking pointed and
important questions about the use of volunteers, the outrageous Mason Square
situation, and the $500,000 cut in library funding. Except for chairman Markey,
Library Commission members are so far rather disappointing. As newcomers to
city politics (except in terms of ambition and connections), they are wet behind
the ears and definitely unprepared to deal with active citizens. Commissioner
Bettye Webb, a retired Mason Square librarian, introduced herself to me by expressing
her resentment of my letter asking why she wasn't at last week's city council
finance subcommittee meeting on restoration of the $500,000 cut in the library
budget. Commissioner Helen Boyle, another SLMA retiree, objected to the idea
that the commission and the public have an active role in hiring the part time
volunteer coordinator. Luckily, during the meeting, there was a moment when
it was appropriate to publicly address the chair on the responsibility of members
of boards and commissions to listen to whatever the citizens have to say to
them: the good, the bad and the ugly, the angry and the fawning. As SLMA retirees,
Library Director Emily Bader's remarks were informative, helpful and to the
point. Of particular interest was the discussion of the trusts and bequests
which followed the library system in the switch from the SLMA to the Library
Department. Some bequests which could benefit either libraries or museums have
remained with the Association, a situation which definitely bears further monitoring
and investigation!!!
The commission voted to support the proposal that two more members be added
to the commission, and members of the public spoke in favor of commission membership
being reflective of the geographic and population diversity of the city. They
also passed a measure urging city councilors to restore the $500,000 Bill Foley
cut from library funds.
Library minutes will be posted on the web at www.springfieldlibrary.org, and,
at the excellent suggestion of Marge Guess, hard copies will be posted in branch
libraries.
Agenda items for the Library Commission may be submitted by Monday to chairman
Pat Markey: 746-5512, email: markeyjenn@aol.com.
Library activists might do well to think over and communicate to each other
and chairman Markey, qualifications and characteristics they would like to see
in the volunteer coordinator. This individual will be a sort of "hinge"
person, linking the public with the professional staff. An energetic, spirited
and vocal volunteer presence will embody the bold new role for citizens in Springfield's
PUBLIC library system.