Building FAQ

Our library staff has done a terrific job of putting together a Frequently Asked Questions list about our building project. I hope and believe it will answer some of the many good concerns out there in the community. The FAQ is a work in progress and available on our library website.

Nice work, folks!

This really frosts my cake...

The online forums in the Post-Crescent (or any online forum, generally) are not always the place for reasoned debate. In particular, the anonymity of the great majority of those who post using "handles" makes it possible for people to say anything without attaching their names to it --and thus taking responsibility for their statements.

I'll let a lot of the things I read there roll off. I'll usually post -- using my name, natch -- if I feel there are some facts lacking that can be readily supplied. Sometimes I just have to take issue, which is the case when I read statements that appear prejudicial. There were two today:

PSY-OPS wrote:

"yuppy [condo] tennants probably wouldn't like mingling with the library's current daytime clientele."

helpusnow wrote:

"food, clothing and shelter are needs-libraries are wants; because poor people"want" a place to hangout i dont feel a "need" to pay for it"

Without even getting into whether education, culture, opportunity and hope are needs (and they are), I felt obligated to speak out on behalf of both poor people and all library users, and posted the following:

There are those who legitimately disagree whether this is a worthwhile project. But it is difficult to accept minimizing the need by belittling those in the community who may be poor or homeless. Yes, the poor, the homeless, the disabled, and the mentally ill use the library.

Many other people use the library in even larger numbers. There are lots of toddlers and babies here every day -- and doctors, housewives, teenagers, senior citizens, judges, business people, students, & mostly just plain folks. It's a place for everyone.

We've had 8,602 people through the doors in the last three-and-a-half days. With this volume of use, this many people, there are occasional problems & all are not solved instantly. But staff and volunteers do a good job of enforcing the basic common sense rule: keep it nice for everybody.

It's a lousy argument to say the library includes people to look down on & thus is unworthy of support.

Terry Dawson

Q&A: Appleton library director discusses building proposal

The Post-Crescent has published a lengthy article based on an interview by Larry Gallup, their Senior Editor for Community Conversation. Larry sat me down with a tape recorder and asked some important and insightful questions.

The Post-Crescent • July 16, 2009

It's a big decision — and it comes with a big price tag. Should Appleton build a new public library, which a consulting firm pegs at $33 million, with up to $7 million more to handle parking, plus the associated costs of a new building?
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The Library Board has endorsed the plan in concept — a 140,000-square-foot building, which would be more than 50,000 square feet bigger than the current library and would be better equipped to handle its growing needs. For the plan to advance, the Appleton Common Council would have to approve the next step, which is selecting a site.

Appleton Library Director Terry Dawson has been front-and-center during the analysis and planning process — and will continue to be.

To provide some insight on where the process has been, where it is now and where it's going, we asked him some questions Tuesday. Here are his answers:...

See the full article here. My thanks to the Post-Crescent for giving so many column-inches to a topic that is important to many and will be a difficult public decision.

There's more to design of new library than space

Post-Crescent letters July 13, 2009

In response to the July 4 letter about the proposed library building, I appreciate Mr. Thiel's acknowledgement both of the need for more library space and the wisdom of a single downtown facility.

But I take issue with some of his points, which appear to be in response to The Post-Crescent's report on a brief presentation by architects, rather than considering the full study.

Mr. Thiel's statement notwithstanding, the architects who spent months designing spaces for a conceptual building program did, in fact, include engineering input and look at many alternatives, including four different design options for expanding our current facility.

While expansion on this site could feasibly address most library concerns, it would not likely be the most cost-effective option for library service in the long run. A crucial concept is that current and future needs are only partly about increased space.

Any design should also address functional needs for increased safety and security, accessible public meeting spaces, improved use of technology, automation of operations, fewer service points and generally more efficient use of staff.

Any design should also be as green and sustainable as possible. Dollars invested wisely up front will be repaid in the long term with more usability and lower unit operating costs to provide more service.

With a project of this magnitude and community impact, we should not be penny-wise and pound-foolish. We encourage community members to read the full report, available at the Appleton Public Library, and at www.apl.org. We look forward to more conversation.

Terry Dawson,
Director, Appleton Public Library

Farm Market Stories & Songs

Miss Kathleen keeps 'em spellbound at the Appleton Downtown Farm Market:Our Children's staff is doing story hours at the market on three Saturday mornings this summer -- and even without the stories, the weekly market is a cure for the summertime blues (part 5).

Cure for the Summertime Blues (part 4)

For adults, it's beach leisure reading -- I'm currently greatly enjoying the latest Stephanie Plum novel, Finger Lickin' Fifteen. For kids, it's more essential. Here's a New York Times piece that's no news to librarians, but it's nice to hear other people singing our song.

A brief excerpt:

OP-ED COLUMNIST: The Best Kids’ Books Ever
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Pry your kids away from the keyboard and the television, and give them a book. For ideas, here’s a summer reading list....

“In educating myself this spring about education, I was aghast to learn that American children drop in I.Q. each summer vacation — because they aren’t in school or exercising their brains.

This is less true of middle-class students whose parents drag them off to summer classes or make them read books. But poor kids fall two months behind in reading level each summer break, and that accounts for much of the difference in learning trajectory between rich and poor students.

A mountain of research points to a central lesson: Pry your kids away from the keyboard and the television this summer, and get them reading.”

His list is worth checking out. What's on your list of best kids' books ever?

Information overload: the death of reference has been greatly exaggerated

The debate over how we read, perpetuated largely by media insiders, is starting to seem like little more than a distraction from the real problem: We have access to more information than ever, yet we do not know what to do with it. We are desperately information-illiterate.

Danielle Maestretti "Shelf Life: Information Overload", Utne Reader July-August 2009

This is very worthwhile reading, unambiguously concluding:

...media literacy should be a high school requirement, which seems like a no-brainer—10 or 20 years ago, even. For now, it seems that burden is being shouldered by school librarians, which would be a more promising scenario if they weren’t often among the first heads on districts’ budgetary chopping blocks.

For the out-of-school, significant information literacy can be gleaned from public librarians, who are info-literate by trade. Yes, even in this digital age—especially in this digital age—librarians are often the best place to start. They’re at reference desks and Radical Reference (www.radicalreference.info), on instant messenger and telephone, behind brightly colored “Ask a Librarian!” buttons on library websites. They’ll help you cut through the clutter and send you back into the world with a few literacy skills you didn’t even know you needed.

Amen.

This is where I disagree with Toni Garvey's statement that “Reference is not our niche.” Google has won this competition! This is true as far as it goes, but is easily oversimplified. I use Google and Wikipedia, too. But I still use our reference service. Google has drastically changed the reference niche, but hasn't eliminated it any more than television eliminated movies.

This is why our reference librarians are busier than ever. This why experimenting with new information delivery channels, such as chat and text, are an essential part of library service. As more people need and use our public access computers, and as more people try to cope with information overload at home and at work, we're there to help.

We wish that more people knew what we could do -- but on the other hand, we're already pretty busy.

Getting our act(ors) together

Like most public libraries, we depend upon -- and need -- a broad range of community support. And like many, we are lucky to have organized supporters who work to improve and assist the library. At the Appleton Public Library, we are fortunate enough to have both a friends group (Friends of Appleton Library, or FOAL) and a Foundation (Appleton Library Foundation, Inc.). Now the two are on the verge of merging into a single, and stronger, organization.

The Friends have been around since the mid-1970s, were formed to support the library, as well as in support of the need to improve library service and possibly get a new library building. They were heavily involved in political support for the 1978 referendum which resulted in our current building. They created the "walking books" program of delivery to the homebound. They started an endowment fund which supports programs. Currently they have about 250 members, run two book sales each year as their main fundraiser and coordinate the annual holiday "Give a Child a Book" campaign. The provide the library with volunteer and financial support, particularly with regard to programming. They have a grass roots focus and an emphasis on fellowship.

The Foundation was started in 1985 by supporters who wanted to focus on providing broad financial support for any library services which would give our library "the edge of excellence", including materials, technology and marketing in addition to programs. They had a successful five year capital campaign to jump start their endowment fund and make annual grants from a budget approved by the Library Board, according to their Gifts Policy. They do an annual end of year donation request letter and hold an annual fundraising dinner. The Foundation also serves as the fiscal agent for the Friends.

With two wonderful, successful groups, why would we want to change? For one reason: to focus community and staff efforts and library goals and plans. With two groups, two boards, two structures, two sets of meetings, there are areas of overlap and there are gaps. There is a lack of clear public identity as to who is the library support group -- and there's occasional public confusion. There is additional overhead for staff in care and feeding of two organizations.

Public funding is increasingly tight at the same time that library use is growing dramatically. To maintain and grow our services, we need ever more volunteers, ever more private dollars and ever more people willing and able to speak up about the value of the library to decision makers. We need an active community willing to focus on and engage library service needs.

Inspired by a program exploring similar mergers at last year's Public Library Association conference, we started looking at pros and cons of changing. Our Friends and Foundation have been talking for most of the last year and are now looking at a merger agreement. We did a study, conducted by Library Strategies, to identify issues and opportunities. After reflection and discussion, we had a facilitated planning session in which members of both boards rolled up their sleeves and set priorities. The help of an attorney to see to the legal issues has been crucial.

When approved, the new body will be called the Friends of Appleton Library, but will be incorporated like the Foundation. It will be organized like the current Friends, but with some of the Foundation's business structure. And we'll ask everyone serving on both boards to join as members of the initial board of the merged entity. And then we'll need to develop new policies and a new budget.

This has been and will be a lot of work in the short run, but we have little doubt of the long term payoff. The single support group would be able to have a staff, start a capital campaign to help with a new library building, grow their membership and be an increasingly strong voice to recruit volunteers, promote library services and advocate for the library.

We're excited to see what happens next!

Library receives family literacy grant

From today's Post Crescent:

$860,000 in grants from J.J. Keller Foundation and U.S. Oil golf event will go to poverty programs

Collaboration between a charity golf event and the J.J. Keller Foundation will mean more than $860,000 for organizations targeting poverty in northeastern Wisconsin...

Appleton Library Foundation: $31,402 for Prime Time Family Reading Program which uses reading out loud, storytelling, and reading strategies to promote higher-order thinking and help the children from low- income families better succeed in school. This is year one of a two-year grant totaling $36,902.

Our children's librarians have done great work to develop & implement the Prime Time Family Reading Time Program -- originally developed by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities. It's gratifying to see this kind of community support and recognition that family literacy is a basic need when it comes to fighting poverty.

It was a real privilege that the Schmidt Oil Foundation, J.J. Keller Foundation, and the Community Foundation for the Fox Valley Region chose our library to announce these many grants to fight poverty. We're grateful for the grants and proud to be in distinguished company!

Board endorses new building

The report on library facility options was presented by Engberg Anderson architects at a Library Board meeting and in a special presentation to the City Council this week. The Library Board has endorsed the report, which calls for a new library building as a better option for Appleton than an expanded building.

The preliminary report, available on the library website, looks at building design options for either an expansion of the present building or new construction. The Post-Crescent did a nice job reporting on the presentation to Council. I encourage anyone interested in the future of our library to read the report.

This takes the discussion into a new phase. The Library Board has asked the Mayor to consider a site selection process for next year. There's a lot of work and discussion that will need to happen before that decision gets made. A few points ...

1. The need is real -- and is not one that comes from the staff or the Board, but from the community, the public's use of library services and comparison with best practices in the state and nation. This was substantiated in the extensive community process we undertook last year, with lots of public participation. But I expect we'll need to keep repeating it and justifying it.
   
   
2. The library is for everyone. It's frustrating to hear some people say that we wouldn't have the need, or the library would be worth supporting, if only we kept "those people" away -- and meaning those who may be different. I'll keep on saying it: the library is for everyone. We'll ask anyone to leave if they misbehave or interfere with other folks' library use.

   But we won't deny service to people because they're poor or mentally ill or disabled or speak a different language. This is a public library in a nation founded on equality and freedom. This is a place where everyone in the community can come on an equal basis to learn, to gather, and to create their own opportunities.
   

3. One building, downtown - we pretty much resolved in last year's process that branch libraries are not yet the solution for Appleton. Additional facilities will always be inherently less efficient, as collections, staff functions and utility costs get multiplied. Appleton is not yet big enough to justify this.

   And a central library as part of a vibrant downtown works on a lot of levels. We're readily accessible by bicycle and bus. We're within walking distance for many residents and convenient for senior housing and downtown workers. We collaborate with other downtown businesses and organizations. One of the busiest buildings in Appleton, we're part of making the downtown cool, and we're glad to be here!
   

4. We want to do the best job for the future of the community. Staff sees heavy use on a daily basis -- not just in the short term, but in the long term. In my 31 years here, I've seen use grow and grow and grow. We need to do it right, not short-sightedly or expediently. Quick fixes tend to just cost more in the long run.


5. We want to be careful in our decision-making. Many people say, "we can't afford this now -- maybe in a few years." But we're not talking about building now, we're talking about planning now so we can build in a few years, if we can afford it. Whether or not we build a library, our City is fiscally conservative, careful about structuring our long term debt and committed to not having big tax increases. That won't change, and we expect that some private dollars will be needed to make this happen. But it will take a decision by the City to proceed before we can effectively begin to raise those private funds.
   

Amid rather reactionary responses in the Post-Crescent's online forum, there was this small gem of wisdom:

payingattention wrote:

Rather than rapid-firing comments that have little basis, people should become involved in the civic process so they understand that what gets printed in the paper only skims the surface of the careful work that's been done. There is much more to running the city, library and schools than most people can imagine. In-depth planning is done years in advance and when need is anticipated, it is weighed and thoughtfully considered.

The library is many things to many people. It doesn't try to be a 'one-stop' shop, but it does have state standards to meet and a mission to carry out. Chances are, if you don't live in Appleton or use the library building, you have probably had benefit of the OWLS library system interlibrary loan of items from the APL, without having to drive there yourself.

Everyone knows this is a difficult time to consider spending money, but potential library construction is not expected until between 2012 and 2014. Please become informed and THEN discuss.