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Rare Chance To Redeem D.C. Libraries; [FINAL Edition] |
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The Washington Post Company Aug 5, 2004 This is the most critical moment in the history of If the city makes the right moves now, it could have a new central library and 21 new or totally renovated branches, all within eight years, according to a proposal by city planners, new library board member Richard Levy and downtown business improvement district executive Joe Sternlieb. The library system has the chance to hire a new director,
purge the board that let the libraries fall apart, take advantage of private
support for new buildings and -- most dramatically -- put a new central
library into the retail, residential and cultural mix planned for the old
convention center site along The proposed remake of the system would use not one cent of general fund money. Instead, the $170 million project would raise funds by selling off the decrepit Martin Luther King Jr. library, selling air rights over a new central library, raising donations from foundations, corporations and individuals, and selling bonds. But there are serious questions about the numbers in that plan, and both D.C. Council members and Ralph Nader's D.C. Library Renaissance Project are wary of selling off the King library and about putting a new library at the old convention center site. Still, in a city with a 37 percent illiteracy rate, a school system that seems impervious to reform and libraries that are an insult to anyone who bothers to enter them, the need for quick action is palpable. In the two years that
I've been writing about the plight of the city's libraries, much has
happened. Nader took up the cause and got the
mayor's attention. D.C. planners awoke to the nationwide revival of urban
libraries -- and to their potential both to bridge the literacy gap and to
attract people to a revived downtown. Mayor Tony Williams began to shake up the library board, adding a higher caliber of needed expertise. Still, a search for a new director has so far found no qualified candidates; like the city's schools, the libraries' plight scares off good executives. A few weeks ago, the mayor showed that he means business when he and City Administrator Robert Bobb showed up to meet with library trustees. Bobb has been a big library booster in other cities he's managed. The enemy here is the complacency, conservatism and fear of some who purport to advocate for the libraries. The very same
volunteer groups and trustees that stood by while the system slipped into
pathetic uselessness now oppose the creative moves that have given cities
such as Seattle, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York libraries that attract
children and adults alike with technology, inviting buildings and
well-stocked shelves. A reflexive opposition to anything that smacks of commerce
drives some library activists to reject public-private partnerships, such as
one proposed in Tenleytown, where, immediately
across Last summer, the city had a chance to slam the brakes on a small- scale replacement of the Tenley library. Developers offered to put a mixed-use project -- with a virtually free library -- on that extremely valuable corner. But neighbors intent on preventing the city from recouping taxpayer investment in the Metro system rebelled against the notion of a larger building. A mayor who really sought to strengthen the tax base would consider the zone around a Metro station to be urban gold. He would do anything it took to make certain that such locations are built up to the max. But this mayor caved to a handful of change-averse NIMBYs who pretend that they live in Mayberry R.F.D. The
mayor's planning office has given in to a loud minority, giving up on turning
Williams could still stop the Tenleytown project cold and insist that the library be replaced with a larger building including retail and office space suitable to a location adjacent to Metro. Send that message, and the other pieces will fall quickly into place. |
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The Washington Post Company Mar 16, 2004 You'd hardly know it from the way he mopes around town, poking fun at himself over his inability to connect with the people, but Mayor Tony Williams is a sucker for grand plans. Too many of the mayor's pipe dreams (leaded or unleaded) get clogged up and die. But now, the mayor's agenda features something small enough to be achieved and big enough to make a difference -- reviving the city's sad library system. Two springs ago in this space, I detailed the pathetic state of the libraries -- unkempt, thin collections; sagging buildings; an utter failure to capitalize on the system's stellar real estate holdings. Ralph Nader picked up the challenge. His D.C. Library
Renaissance Project has brought the plight of the libraries to the attention
of the city's corporate chieftains and has created enough clamor that the
mayor's proposed cuts to the libraries budget were rolled back. Along the way, city
planning director Andy Altman gave the mayor some bedtime reading -- a
chapter from the autobiography of Vartan Gregorian,
the former president of Brown University who rallied New York City's power
structure around the public library, turning a neglected institution back
into what it's supposed to be: a proud showcase and an engine of social and
economic mobility. Williams was sold. But as often happens in The board, which has a penchant for doing the public's business behind closed doors, has fought the Nader group every step of the way, most recently rejecting Minsky's offer to help recruit a panel of library experts to advise the board on picking a new director for D.C.'s system. So you'd think the mayor's proposal to revive the board with serious, high-profile appointments would win kudos all over town. Alas, some defenders of the status quo -- the Not In My Backyard crowd -- are wary of the mayor's nominees because one of them is -- horrors! -- a developer. With three slots to fill, Williams chose Richard Levy, a developer who is as responsible as anyone else for Georgetown's comeback from its 1980s days as one big bazaar selling gaudy gold chains to drug dealers; John Hill, the bookish former director of the D.C. financial control board; and Myrna Peralta, a diversity consultant with no library experience. Levy and Hill have
been working behind the scenes with the mayor on a new central library to be
built on the old convention center site (along with a Smithsonian music
museum and office and retail development.) The idea is to sell off the Martin
Luther King Jr. library, gaining about $40 million for the library system (a
major institution is interested in using the King building as a public
space.) That money would seed a $200 million modernization of every branch in
the city. But the library board envisions the library system losing control of its properties to rapacious developers who want to surround libraries with apartments and retail stores. In other cities, this
has resulted in beautiful, well-stocked new libraries that citizens
crowd into because they are bright, welcoming and useful. In So the D.C. Council stalled Levy's nomination to the board, a failed attempt to save a seat for Alexander Padro, an energetic gadfly who has been pushing the libraries forward. Padro ticked off the mayor by being so openly critical, but his is a valuable voice. Having him and Levy on the same board -- something the Nader group supports -- would be an elegant solution. Levy has no financial interest in any library properties, nor does he seek such a role. What he wants is to make it easy for a politically clumsy mayor to do what other cities have done -- use libraries to bridge the economic divide and create a vital streetscape. "This mayor is an introverted intellectual who loves books and wants people to love books," says Levy, who insists that he and Williams will see this through. "Nothing worth doing gets done without people taking potshots at you." |
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Library
Plan Takes D.C. in Wrong Direction; [FINAL Edition] |
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The Washington Post Company Jul 8, 2003 The suburbs have had it with sprawl. The city wants to lure 100,000 new residents over the next 10 years. Sounds like the start of a beautiful friendship, right? Ah, but do not underestimate the power of the oddest of cults, urban dwellers who believe that they inhabit some sylvan glade where nothing more shall be built -- ever. Purportedly liberal, these creatures reveal themselves to be fiercely conservative whenever it appears that other human beings might move into their neighborhood. The woefully underdeveloped area around the Tenleytown Metro station on the Red Line is a perfect
case in point. The D.C. Council gets its final chance today to halt a
dangerously shortsighted project that would replace the decrepit public
library at To attract those new residents the mayor says the city needs,
So how have the struggling D.C. library system and the city's jittery leadership reacted to proposals from developers who would be thrilled to build such a mixed-use facility? "The time for discussion about mixed use has passed," sniffs Molly Raphael, director of the system. D.C. Council member Kathy Patterson, who represents Tenleytown, says mixed use is nice in theory, but no thanks. "Folks not as familiar as I am with this government might think this sounds harsh," she says, "but the reality is that if we stop now, there might never be a library." Follow this logic closely: The city is not competent enough to solicit and manage proposals for a development that could turn a neighborhood of dormant retailing and nonexistent street life into an exciting place and a boon to the District's bankbook. Therefore, though the city government in theory supports transit-oriented development, forget it. Some residents want to stick with a small library to
maintain what they call the "old-fashioned" character of the
neighborhood. "I like that there's some space for the eye to rest
between the library and development," says Anne Sullivan, who's lived in
Tenleytown for 20 years. "We don't want to end
up being Instead, that stretch of By stopping now and considering the fresh ideas of planners and developers, the city could in one deft move get "a better library, green space, parking, tax revenue, housing" and a sorely needed addition for Janney Elementary School, adjacent to the library, says Glenn Williamson, a real estate expert and one of many parents at Janney who see this as a golden opportunity. All it would take is a dose of leadership from a mayor and council members who love mixed use in the abstract but can't quite summon the courage to stand up to the urban conservatives. "What we do with public land says what we value as a community," Patterson says. Exactly right. To let the current plans for this library stand would be to say the District values fiscal disaster and brutal selfishness. |
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Help D.C.'s Libraries, Nader Rides Again; [FINAL
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The Washington Post Company Dec 10, 2002 Anyone who tries to raise money for a good cause in We have plenty of rich residents, but for every Betty Casey -- who donated $100 million for our trees and a mayor's mansion -- there are several zillionaires whose first loyalty is to the place where they grew up, not to this, their adult home. So when the plight of the D.C. public libraries was documented in this paper this year, there was plenty of concern from people who knew the role libraries had played in preparing them for lives of learning and success, but the reaction from those who have the wherewithal to do something about the city's decrepit, resource- starved system was silence. Into the breach comes
a man of little wealth but great drive, a man who generally devotes himself
to the national stage but who has lived here for nearly half a century and
knows the city well: Ralph Nader. "I really don't
need another cause," says the As you might expect, Nader is a
library person, always has been. He grew up in a small In libraries, Nader developed a life of information and ideas. A boy or girl growing up in "I'll certainly find out if there's any noblesse oblige left among the city's glitterati," Nader says. He's hosting a $10,000-a- table benefit dinner tomorrow at the Carnegie Institution, where he hopes to enlist people with deep pockets in a private-sector campaign to do for District libraries what Brooke Astor and other wealthy New Yorkers have done for theirs. It's been a struggle to get started. Nader says a few of the city's most dedicated boosters -- such as the Reynolds and Cafritz foundations and Donald Graham, chairman of The Washington Post Co. - - expressed support right away. But "it's the same old suspects," Nader says. "We need to find a new group of people." With an initial goal of $350,000, Nader hopes to launch an 18- month blitz of improvements, including money for repairs to the city's 27 branch libraries, political support for a boost in the library budget, and new activities focusing on children, the arts and literacy. The need is immediately apparent to anyone who visits the libraries. Open six evenings a week in the 1970s, branches now stay open only two evenings. No branch is open on Sundays. Roofs leak, walls sag, shelves are a mess. Collections are insultingly out of date and incomplete. The system's strategic plan for the next two years states the situation bluntly: "The residual effects of the District's fiscal crisis have left the city unable to provide world-class city services." Nader is intent on proving that wrong. To those who scoff at the very idea of libraries in the Internet age, Nader offers this eternal truth: "There is no substitute for flipping through books, for browsing shelves." That's where you find exactly what you weren't looking for, and that's where the magic lies. E-mail: marcfisher@washpost.com |
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The
Old-Fangled Search Engine; In a Digital Age, Do Libraries Still Count?;
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The Washington Post Company Jan 13, 2001 Here we are, a-muddle in the middle of the Information Rage. At our very fingertips, we've got access to more than 3 billion Internet sites teeming and streaming with info on everything from aardvarks to zymurgy. We don't need no stinking libraries. Or do we? Good question. Whom do we ask? AltaVista? Google? Ask Jeeves.com? Nahhh. Let's ask a librarian. Now'd be a good time. Some 10,000
are descending on the Excuse me. Do we need libraries anymore? Nancy Kranich, chief librarian at "Yes," says Kranich
(sounds like "chronic"), who quotes stats like others quote Keats.
She cites a 1998 Gallup Poll in which Americans overwhelmingly believe that
libraries will be necessary for the foreseeable future and that 81 percent
use libraries at least once a year. "We
need libraries more than ever," Kranich says,
"to bridge the digital divide." What the devil is the digital divide? Only about 41 percent of Americans have access to the Internet at home, she explains. The rest do not. For them, "the library is the number one point of access." Some 95 percent of public libraries provide Internet services to patrons. So libraries offer
computers, copy machines and a free stubby pencil when we need one -- sort of
like a publicly funded Kinko's? The library is much
more. It has books you can borrow. And music. And sometimes art, maps,
videos, video games and lots of other things. Some loan out tools; others
toys, Kranich says. The best libraries provide: answers to questions, programs
to expand our horizons and, if we know how to use the catalogue, an indexed, Windexed window to the rest of the world and the universe
beyond. In Other libraries
feature foreign language classes, literacy courses, after-school activities,
guidance for expectant mothers and other opportunities. So could you please explain why we need librarians in the age of the almighty Internet? Shhh! Whisper. Librarians are more necessary than ever, says Kranich. In the nonstop tsunami of global information, librarians provide us with floaties and teach us how to swim. Librarians, Kranich says, "are a great source for giving people just the information they need to make good decisions." In a way, librarians are Yahoos. You know -- human search engines. They vacuum in vast amounts of words and images -- some trivial, some profound -- and arrange, organize and filter them for us. "We have always been cataloguers," she says. "Librarians are selective." They are critical and choosy in ways that computers never will be. Libraries are like the ultimate 3-D Web sites. Whatever happened to
bookmobiles? The beloved buses, step vans and other chunky vehicles that
carry books into the hinterlands are still putt-putting around some rural
routes. A few, called cybermobiles, have been updated with computers hooked up
to the Internet via satellites. At the What if I need information when the public library is closed? Some libraries are staying open later; others are offering innovative after-hours services. A few are fighting fire with fire, using the Internet to assist patrons. Sixty or so institutions, under the aegis of the Library of Congress, are ramping up a round-the- clock online reference service scheduled to debut in the summer. Are there more statistics demonstrating the importance of libraries? "Libraries are busier than ever," Kranich says, whipping out a handy pamphlet. Stats show that: Americans go to libraries -- public and academic -- three times as often as we go to the movies. We check out an average of six books a year. From nearly 16,000 libraries. More than there are McDonald's franchises, Kranich loves to point out. Inside them, librarians answer more than 7 million questions a week. (Some dumber than these.) And librarians never ask: "Would you like fries with that?" Can you talk about the great national meaning of public libraries? To many Americans, the library is a secular shrine. "It's no accident," Kranich says, "that the counting of the presidential ballots took place in the Leon County Public Library. Where else is there a neutral place in that county?" Nancy Kranich believes that
"Americans long for a sense of community," she says, "a place
to rekindle civic life." That attitude is driving the design of new
libraries. No one is sure what future
libraries will look like, but What's the Fact is, the association's
lobbyists are here all the time. And they are apoplectic over the Children's
Internet Protection Act, which President Clinton signed in December. Under
the law, says The The Speaking of e-books, will we even have libraries in the future? "There was a decline in the '80s," Kranich says, "when libraries were closing." Staffs were slashed and schools of library science shuttered their doors. Now libraries are undergoing a renaissance and there is a shortage of qualified workers, Kranich says. Libraries may even get hot. Incoming first lady Laura Bush, after all, is a former librarian. New libraries are
cropping up everywhere -- in The Internet Public Library began as a student project at
the Which aren't going anywhere, says Kranich. Instead, it seems they're going everywhere. |
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