With Friends Like These...

Allow me to call your attention to a brief announcement in the September 2013 Director's Report.

"The August 22-26 book sale raised $7,147. The sale included items from the library collection from the Better World Books shipment that were not returned to the collection after careful re-evaluation by the Adult Services librarians. According to the Friends, of the 145 boxes of books offered to the Friends for the sale, a total of three boxes of books were selected by the public."

Dear Reader, I attended this book sale on Saturday, August 24. Full disclosure: I bought a handful of books that had been returned from Better World Books and not added back to the collection. 

Most of the books that filled the Lewis Auditorium were donations, not discarded library books. The paperback mystery selections—no library copies among them—were lovingly attended and groomed by a circulating clutch of Friends. The romance and fantasy paperbacks were also tenderly tended. 

The Library's former books? The ones at the heart of #bookgate? They were partitioned off in two small rooms, still in boxes, difficult to browse. A few other boxes, even more jumbled, were shoved into a corner of the large room. There were signs pointing the curious to "Former Library Books."

I didn't count the boxes - adorned with the Better World Books logos on their sides - but I would be surprised if there were more than 50 available all told. 

Where were the other 100 boxes? I have no idea. Some were stacked up in the back hallway. A Reclaiming traveler said when s/he inquired about them, s/he was told the boxes contained "crap fiction" that no one would want.

Perhaps, just maybe, the Friends could have sold more than 3 boxes of the returned books if they lovingly groomed and curated even a small portion of them in the same way they did the rows of James Patterson, Sue Grafton, and Lillian Braun.

Of course, the Friends didn't want any of the returned library books to sell, period. As one of the Friends stated during public comment at the June 19 Special Meeting of the Library's Board (you can listen at about 01:26:00 mark in this recording), no one wants to buy old library books anyway. We were told to trust the Friends, that they know better than even the librarians what the community wants to read.

With Friends like these, who needs enemies?

A Little News

The Library's June 2013 statistical report was posted this weekend, making available a more complete view of changes in collections and circulation over the past several years. You can view a compilation spreadsheet of data points since 2007 and offer your comments / questions as well.

Interestingly the June 2013 report DOES NOT include accurate information about the extensive weeding of a portion of the adult nonfiction collection (#bookgate) that precipitated public concern. If you examine the report, you will not that it states 161 adult nonfiction and 9231 adult fiction books were removed from the collection. In actuality more than 9,000 nonfiction books were shipped to Better World Books. I

Many of the weeded books have been returned to the Library from Better World Books, and adult services librarians  are now re-evaluating these materials. A large number of these previously weeded books will likely be returned to the collection, but it may be several weeks before more accurate collection figures are available.

Director Lissak has provided some information about strategic planning in response to FOIA requests, but much of what she has returned is fairly minimal and consists primarily of documents recently made available on the Library's website. In the near future, we will compile documents from the FOIA requests and make them publicly available on this website.

In the News-Gazette, you can read librarian Amber Casten's tribute to recently retired head of adult services Anne Phillips  and a thoughtful commentary on library governance and public oversight by Barbara Wysocki.

The next meeting of the Urbana Free Library's Board of Trustees is Tuesday, August 13. If you are a local resident, we hope you will attend. We have much to learn from the Board about plans for an interim director,  how the public will be allowed to participate in strategic planning, and more. There are many questions that remain unanswered too. This blog will offer more information about the meeting closer to its occurrence.