As the nation engages in war with terrorism, Library Commissioner Mary A. Dempsey has herself gone on the offensive against a library trade publication that she says distorted the story of the massive “weeding” project conducted at Sulzer Regional Library during August and September.
Since August 7, when Dempsey forced longtime regional director Leah Steele out of her job and tried to put her into an ill-defined new position downtown, Dempsey has been the focus of increased media scrutiny and public criticism. She recently fired back at writer George Eberhardt and the magazine he writes for, American Libraries, which is published by the Chicago-based American Library Association. An Eberhardt article in the October issue told the story of the Sulzer weeding controversy, playing up the angle of Ald. Gene Schulter’s confrontations with downtown library staffers who tried to order him to leave the library. Eberhardt’s piece also aired anonymous Chicago Public Library (CPL) staffers’ criticisms of Dempsey and her policies, and also quoted the ousted Steele.
Dempsey responded with an approximately 540-word letter to the editor, fuming that the article was “replete with groundless accusations, bias and outright lies” and that American Libraries “has reached a new low in journalism.”
She said Eberhardt “took the word of an alderman who is running for reelection, the alderman’s own political newsletter mouthpiece and the former library manager responsible for that library’s collection mess. “I am astounded that this magazine would advocate that an elected official should dictate what books a library should have on its shelves. By glorifying his actions—which included storming into the library, verbally abusing librarians and security staff and grandstanding for a local newspaper photographer—American Libraries does an enormous disservice to the professional men and women of the Chicago Public Library and librarians everywhere who know how to build and how to weed library collections.”
Dempsey continued: “the librarians at Sulzer have for years talked about the need to do this weeding project,” which she said was planned in June with the help of former director Steele.
Dempsey went on to recount examples of the “shocking and dangerous” books that needed to be weeded out of the library’s collection: “old medical and tax preparation guides from the 1980s; atlases from the ‘70s; torn, dirty and outdated fiction; science and social studies books from the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s; and test preparation books for the SAT, GRE and citizenship exams from the 1970’s and 1980’s filled the shelves while boxes of new books, ordered for Sulzer by the central collection development department, sat in the Sulzer basement because there was no room for them in the stacks.”
“What is perhaps more shocking,” Dempsey continued, “is that there was no need to keep these outdated and shabby books on the shelves. Sulzer has its own generous book budget that, inexplicably, the former regional library director did not spend.” She said the unspent book budget for Sulzer “at the start of the weeding project” exceeded $280,000.
“Fortunately, as a result of the weeding project and the installation of a new regional director, the Sulzer staff is now thoughtfully spending its budget and building a real collection. Far from being ‘devastated’ I would characterize the staff of Sulzer as relieved and energized because they can at last move forward armed with new collections and new leadership.”
Dempsey concluded by praising the librarians who “identified a serious need for collection weeding and collection development, pitched in to help and withstood hurtful accusations leveled at them by uninformed third parties and former employees. The librarians and staff of the Chicago Public Library are our most valuable asset because they are professional and committed to providing our library users with the most current books and the most accurate information resources. I am proud to call them my colleagues, and our Mayor, our Library Board and our library users support their unwavering dedication to this honored profession and to the Chicago Public Library.”
Maureen Kennedy of Sulzer’s media department said of the letter: “Mary Dempsey has distorted the facts a lot.” She said everyone agreed that the collection needed a thorough weeding, and agrees that there was a serious problem with unshelved books stacking up in the basement.
“It’s not as if we haven’t been weeding,” she said. “Weeding has been going on steadily through the years. ...we’re doing it constantly in the media department.”
Another Sulzer librarian who asked not to be named said that during the first six months of this year—under Steele’s watch—8,000 to 9,000 volumes were weeded from the collection.
Yet, the project was slowed down during the summer due to staff shortages, as staff were pulled away from the project to help with the summer reading program.
The librarian also disputed Dempsey’s suggestion that Sulzer employees had helped plan the weeding project. “It came as a total shock to the staff, that one day Leah was fired as regional director—Tuesday [Aug.] 7th—and Wednesday the 8th, an assistant commissioner and 300 CPL boxes showed up.”
Steele questioned the suspicious timing of the weeding as well. “Why would you plan a project for the day after the regional director was gone and the assistant director’s on vacation?” she said.
She disputed Dempsey’s claim that she had sat down with Dempsey and other library administrators earlier this year to “plan” the massive weeding.
A weeding was mentioned, Steele said, but “there was no plan. My idea of a plan is where people sit down with the assistant director and the unit heads, and they plan the weeding project. No one said when [the weeding] would take place. Nobody sat down and discussed it with us.”
Her professional opinion of the job? “This was not a weeding project that took place. [Weeding] is a professional job. There are guidelines in weeding ... This would include guidelines [about] who’s going to do what, what literary sources are being used to judge the collection against, what’s the timetable for peer review. ...I don’t think what went on was professional.”
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