By Mary Corrado
Editor
Remember the dedicated, experienced reference librarians who helped you do research at the Chicago Public Library just a few years ago? Remember the branch librarians who knew your neighborhood and knew the collection and had time to connect the people to the resources? Many of them have taken early retirement, causing a significant loss of intellectual resources to the city. Many others have been re-assigned to departments or branches which do not use their expertise.
According to numerous librarians interviewed on Sunday at the latest retirement party, the decisions by CPL Commissioner Mary Dempsey over the past 10 years have brought the once fine library system into disruption, inefficiency and low morale.
Like the medical profession, the library field has specialists. It's foolish to put a cardiac surgeon into general practice. It's unwise to put a general practitioner into cardiac surgery. And, of course, making a big cut in the number of doctors at the office reduces the service the public can receive.
Library specialists have been trained in history, art, music, business, children's literature, science, etc. As each specialist gains experience in his department, he becomes more valuable to the public. Running a library—investing time and money into the good people and into the collections—requires support and insight above that needed to simply run a business on the principle of efficiency.
In 2001 Mary Dempsey began "balancing" and forced detailing. To reduce expenses, many staff members were demoted one title; i.e., a Librarian V became a Librarian IV, a Librarian IV became an L-III, and so on. Those at the very bottom were bounced out. Pay was reduced accordingly. Morale suffered at every level.
Money was poured into the construction of new branch libraries, which are believed to increase real estate values in a neighborhood. Branches sprung up everywhere. Against the advice of the staff, the lists of magazines purchased for each branch became increasingly identical, regardless of the ethnic and religious and career patterns of the neighborhood. For example, the Woodlawn branch receives a Taiwanese newspaper that is simply not read in that African American neighborhood. Decisions about which books to purchase became more centralized, made by downtown and not with the input of the branches.
To staff the branches, specialists at the Harold Washington Main Library were pulled out and dispersed. There were 14 specialists on the Art and Music floor of Harold Washington Main Library; now there are only seven. This forced detailing of "volunteers" caused morale to plummet.
Increasing the availability of the Internet, with printers, paper, cartridges, and service, rose as a priority on the budget. (However, word processing is not available at a single branch or regional library despite the critical need of students and adults for that resource.)
The availability of Internet pornography means that "regulars" monopolize the computers accessing hard-core Internet porn—printing hundreds of pages of porn with free ink and paper—while enjoying the discomfort of women and children who pass by. Staff members who are posted nearby cannot move away in disgust but must put up with the practice.
Meanwhile, the amount of money to buy or replace books has been reduced. Fiction bestsellers receive what many librarians feel is a disproportionate amount of what little funding there is for books.
The hours have been maintained though the staff was cut, so the staff has had to stretch thinner to cover the time. Visitors to a branch find it common to see one clerk, one library page and one security guard, and to have one librarian somewhere in the building. It's increasingly likely to call a reference desk and get a busy signal.
Meanwhile, librarians have begun to be diverted from their jobs into "events" and "celebrations" which provide marketing for the city in the way that museums and parks have been doing. Rather than providing appropriate books and offering strong library services to serve an ethnic group, resources go into making a "politically correct" spectacle about a holiday. Losing time in bureaucratic, administrative meetings and paperwork is another frustration for the staff.
Despite the new branches, the annual overall circulation of books has dropped from eight million to seven million under Dempsey's leadership.
As early retirement became an option, those eligible to leave have bailed out of the field. Many branches lost their head librarians. These include Edgewater, Whitney Young, Bessie Coleman, Eckhart Park, Thomas Hughes, Pullman, Walker, Douglass, Edgebrook, Archer Heights, Kelly, King, Uptown, Mount Greenwood, Hall, Beverly, South Shore, McKinley Park, Chicago Lawn, Southeast, Jefferson Park, Lincoln Park and Roosevelt.
Among other staff disruptions, Cathryn Baker of Blackstone left last year when Dempsey fired her; Baker appealed and has been reinstated, but at a different library. (The Hyde Park community wants her back.) In 2001, Leah Steele, the popular and longtime head of Sulzer Regional Library, retired when ordered by Dempsey to take the newly created position of "Literacy Coordinator"—or else. (That position has never been filled.)
The names of many illustrious professionals now fill the list of casualties of the library chaos. Richard Schwegel, head of Music, L-4 (former L-5); Robert Bibbee, head of Literature and Foreign Language, L-4; Marge Crema, L-4; Gregory Carr, L-4; Cassandra Carr, L-4; Emily Guss, L-4; Bruce Ziemer, L-4; Donna Kanapes, L-4; Yvonne Brown, L-4 (former L-5); Margarete Gross, L-4; Neil O'Shea, L-4 (former L-5). From roughly 350, the number of professional librarians working for CPL has shrunk by perhaps one hundred. Meanwhile, numerous assistants have been added to the administration of the library.
As of March 1, David Williams has joined the group of retirees. Highly respected by his peers and the public, he had put in six years in the Social Sciences department of Harold Washington Library. He had then devoted 20 years to the History department —personally ordering and becoming intimately familiar with over half of the resources of it—before being deported by Mary Dempsey to Bessie Coleman Branch Library a year and a half ago. At this branch—which has little demand for print materials for adults—he was placed in charge of books for adults. Upon reaching his 54th birthday, he took early retirement.
David Williams is exploring the idea of a watchdog group of librarians and patrons concerned about the Chicago Public Library. An Internet discussion group and Web site are among the possibilities. |
