Community Questions


Community questions asked at the Emergency meeting on 06/19/2013 and provided to the members of the Board of Trustees and Mayor Prussing. 

Items in italics link to official UFL documents that seek to provide answers
LEADERSHIP
  • How could the Director have been unaware of the extensive weeding on June 8 and 9? 
  • Why is the Director blaming the adult services staff for making mistakes? 
  • Did the Director tell the adult services staff to quickly review the spreadsheets she provided and refuse to provide them more time for evaluation? 
  • Who is accountable for this situation? 
  • How will the Board address personnel and structural issues? 
  • Will there be any consequences for the Director for ignoring the Board order to stop weeding and shipping weeded books (as with the last shipment that went out on Wednesday 6/12)? 
  • Were there policies and procedures that were ignored? 
  • Will there be an outside investigation that includes interviewing former employees that allows us to get to the bottom of this crisis of leadership? 

COMMUNICATION

  • People say they went to the Director to express concerns, she says no one did – what is the truth? 
  • Why weren’t there signs and more attempts to share the plans with the public before going forward? (Signs in the stacks) This is good practice
  • When did the brochure about the strategic planning go out in public areas for patrons? 
  • Much information was posted about the strategic plan on the library website after the controversy broke – why not before? (6/14 FAQ, Strategic Plan for services 6/16 Next Chapter) 
  • How were the upcoming changes being communicated to staff, the community, the Board? 


STAFF CONCERNS

  • Who will protect the staff from reprisal, retribution, recrimination? 
  • What is the workplace culture of UF? 
  • Where can employees go for redress and grievance? 


LOGISTICS
  • When were the RFID tags ordered? 
  • How many books were recycled since December – since June? 
  • How many books and other materials were given away? 
  • How many books were sent to Better World Books since the intensive weeding process began - as some reports indicate - in December, and specifically how many books were sent this June? 
  • What percentage of weeded non-fiction books will be retrieved? 
    • 259 cartons of books were returned [Executive Director's memo to Board of trustees: http://urbanafreelibrary.org/sites/default/files/page/attachments/2013/07/2013-07-09%20Board%20memo.pdf 
  • What percentage of the total collection will this represent?
WEEDING PROCESS
  • What is the normal weeding percentage at UFL? Is it true that little weeding had been done for a number of years across all sections of the library? 
  • Who set the timetable for weeding? How was this communicated? 
  • What guidance was given to the staff about the process? 
  • Why is the collection weeding policy so vague? Will this be updated? 
  •  Statements have been made that intensive weeded started in December – the community would like to know more about that, what were the goals, were there targets for % of collection to weed – or amount of space that needed to be made? 
  • Why were staff given so little time to review the collection for weeding in the non-fiction area? 
  • What accounts for the difference in weeding experiences across sections of the library? 
  • Why was the non-fiction weeding done when Ann Phillips was out of the country?
COSTS and MOTIVATIONS
  • What is the cost per book for RFID? 
  • How does this compare with the replacement cost of books that were culled? 
  • Cost of the 12 hourly staff hired for the RFID project is given as a reason for the massive non-fiction weeding – how much money was involved? Were there no other tasks that could be assigned to these individuals? 
  • Why wasn’t the local and top-ranked Graduate School of Library and Information Science asked if they were interested in participating in the strategic planning process before UFL sought out and paid a consultant? 
  • How many books were given away or were any sold for $1 a volume? 
  • What is the cost of the accidentally weeded materials that will need to be replaced? 
  • What are the circulation figures across time and area for the library? 
  • How many items did the library hold as of November 30, 2012 as of June 15, 2013 are there at the library right now?  

STRATEGIC PLAN
  • Are we ignoring our original mission? 
  • What is the new mission for this library? (Are we really abandoning lifelong learning as a goal?) 

Space
  • What is the space plan for the library? 
  • What is the new floor plan? 
  • Will this be posted for the public as part of the comment period? 
  • What is the long-term vision statement of the UFL? 
  • Is it true the policy for more seating means fewer books? 

Collection
  • How much money is there in the budget to replenish the collection? Is there a plan for what to collect? 
  • What is the plan to replace materials weeded by mistake? 
  • Does the library conduct material counts to capture statistics for what is removed from shelves and consulted but not checked out? 
  • Do we fully understand both positives and negatives of electronic materials under consideration? 
Feedback for strategic plan
  • Who gave input to the strategic plan? 
  • How were the individuals who participated identified? 
  • Who will oversee the process of reopening the strategic plan? 
  • How will the community input be solicited going forward?
  • Will other library priorities will be sacrificed rebuild or replenish the collection? 
  • Is it true that our mission is no longer lifelong learning? 
  • What role did the consultant Sandra Nelson play in developing the vision of the library – was it adapted to the community needs?
    • For answers to some of these questions, see Strategic plan documents and PLA Planning for results documents in 7/9 board packet materials

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