AFPL Limps into the 21st Century...
News & Comment Archives
AFPLWATCH news items and editorials are archived approximately one
month after they are posted.
- Scan a complete list of previously-posted news articles and editorials
here.
- Click on the links below to read the text of previously-published
AFPLWATCH news articles and editorials:
- Local and national publications were documenting AFPL's deterioration
long before AFPLWATCH was begun in November 2000, and continued
to do so. Read the news stories and editorials about AFPL published in
other media in:
2009
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
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LibraryLand Listening Post
News from All Over that's relevant to what's going on--or not going on--at AFPL.
- Public Library Use Shows Steady Increase Over Past Decade
Posted July 1, 2009
If you feel like you've been working harder lately, you probably have been:
And this data was collected before the recent economic downturn.
Details were recently released by the Institute of Museums and
Library Services; yesterday, Stephen's Lighthouse provided a brief
summary of some of the more significant trends.
The graph we'd like to see: the one showing the increase/decrease in the number of public library staff over the
past ten years, superimposed on the graph shown here.
Sources of LibraryLand Bulletins:
- By a wide margin, the most frequently-used source for "LibraryLand" is
LISNews
- Other frequently-used sources (in addition to AFPLWATCH readers themselves):
Contribute an item to (or recommend another resource for) "LibraryLand Listening Post"
The Webmaster's Mailbox
Post your comment to AFPLWATCH
Read comments previously posted to AFPLWATCH.
Rumors & Speculations
Hear/Say
Heard any AFPL gossip recently? Share it with your colleagues by
sending AFPLWATCH an email.
If you prefer not to tell us your name, sign your email with the pseudonym
of your choice.
Read previous items posted to this section of
AFPLWATCH
Inquiring Minds Want to Know...
...if yesterday's sale of the Equitable Building - whose parking lot is next door to the Central Library - isn't
an excellent opportunity for library administrators to make inquiries into possibly leasing some of that parking lot's
spaces to provide additional free parking for Central's visitors? (Posted June 3, 2009)
According to a story
in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, half of the building's space is currently vacant, which should mean there would
be plenty of parking spaces that could be leased.
Finding the funds - either from county coffers or from some enlightened private donor - to pay for the lease would be
challenging, but providing free parking at Central remains the single most important change at Central likely to substantially and
permanently ramp up the number of visitors there.
The recently-announced acquisition of several (and only sometimes-free) parking spaces for library patrons at the lot behind Central
is helpful, but remains far from adequate.
Investing in a reliably plentiful number of free parking spaces at Central should certainly take priority over renovating
the interior of the building. And the costs for taxpayers would be spectacularly lower than the pricetag for abandoning the
current facility and building a new Central Library elsewhere that would include its own parking deck.
...what's the big holdup on hiring people for the four administrative
vacancies that AFPL finally began recruiting for five months ago?
(Posted August 10, 2006; updated October 6, November 3, and December 31,
2006; and January 16, February 7, March 7, April 11, May 15, June 13,
June 29, July 7, August 11, September 7, October 2, November 2, and
December 7, 2007; February 8, March 18, April 4, May 6, June 7, July 25, September 5, September 12, October 9,
and November 12, 2008; January 10, February 19, March 6, April 3, and June 12, 2009)
Four critically-needed administrative posts - Branch Group Administrator, Technical
Services Manager, Community Relations Manager (aka public information
officer), and Central Library Administrator - have gone unfilled since their
vacancies were first advertised on March 10, 2006. All four positions had
been vacant long before then - two of them were vacated before Mary Kaye Hooker was
fired over two years ago. Surely by now there are sufficient numbers of
applicants for all four of these positions for the current library director
to choose among. Why the protracted delays in these four long-awaited
hirings, and why have there been no explanations of those delays?
October 6, 2006 Update: At a meeting of
library managers on October 5th, library director John Szabo stated that
an interviewing team for these vacancies would be created the second week
in October.
November 3, 2006 Update: At the November meeting of library managers,
there was no comment on the status of these important pending interviews.
AFPLWATCH has not been able to verify that any of these interviews had been
conducted in October or had been scheduled as of November 1st.
December 31, 2006 Update: No further news on the scheduling of
interviews for any of these four positions was forthcoming by year's end.
January 16, 2007 Update: We were reminded of the apparently interminable
impasse on filling these key vacant positions when we read a recent
posting at
The Librarian's Guide to Etiquette, one of AFPLWATCH's select
sources of reliably-hilarious library humor. To paraphrase the LGE posting:
Hiring administrators for a public library system is a big deal. Be patient
and do not rush the process, no matter how excruciatingly slow it may seem.
There is a reason that it takes longer to hire a public library administrator
than...
- growing your hair out
- filming a season of
Survivor
confirming a lifetime appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court
delivering due process to prisoners at Gitmo
creating a new human life (from foreplay to delivery)
That reason may not be obvious to anyone, but there must be a reason.
February 7th Update: At a meeting of library managers on February
5th, library director John Szabo reportedly said that he had finally received from
the county's personnel office all the paperwork on the outside applicants
for these four administrative vacancies, and that letters inviting
candidates to the job interviews would be mailed out soon.
March 7th Update: At the March 1st meeting of library managers,
an announcement was made that initial interviews for three of the four positions
had either been held earlier that week, and that initial interviews for
the fourth vacancy had been scheduled for later in March.
April 11th Update: At the April 10th meeting of library managers,
Library Director John Szabo said that interviews were still being conducted
for the four vacant administrative positions.
May 15th Update: At the May meeting of library managers, Library
Director John Szabo said that he hoped to be able to announce the appointment
of the new Public Information Officer "soon," and that a second round of
interviews of candidates for the other three administrative vacancies was
underway.
June 13th Update: At the June meeting of library managers, the status
of these four critical vacancies did not appear on the meeting agenda and
library director John Szabo said narry a word about them.
June 29th Update: According to an announcement earlier this week,
the installation of some new software in the county's personnel department
will require a month-long hiring freeze beginning July 11th. And according
to today's Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Fulton County Manager Tom
Andrews has announced he will
resign by the end of the year.
How will these two things further complicate and/or delay the filling
of AFPL's four administrative vacancies, we wonder?
July 7th Update: Once again, the status of
the library administration vacancies was not included on the agenda of the
July meeting of library managers, and library director John Szabo said nary
a word at that meeting about it.
August 11th Update: Zero, nothing, nada mentioned at the August 9th
managers' meeting about the filling of any or all of the four vacancies.
September 7, 2007 Update: More thundering
silence at the September 6th meeting of library managers about any progress
in filling the organization's four critical administrative vacancies.
October 2, 2007 Update: In an email to staff
dated October 1, 2007, AFPL Director John Szabo announced
appointments to two of the four positions.
November 2, 2007 Update: Status reports on recruitment efforts for
the remaining two unfilled Administrative Team vacancies (the Central
Library Administrator and the Technical Services Manager) were not on the
agenda of the latest monthly meeting of the library director John Szabo
with library system managers, nor did Szabo mention any developments during
that meeting.
December 6, 2007 Update: At the final 2007
meeting of library managers, nothing about the two still-unfilled administrative
positions was on the meeting agenda, and the library director made no
comments about them during the meeting.
February 7, 2008 Update: Ditto.
March 18, 2008 Update: Ditto.
April 4, 2008 Update: Ditto.
May 6, 2008 Update: Ditto.
June 7, 2008 Update: Ditto.
July 25, 2008 Update: At the July meeting of library managers,
nothing was mentioned about any progress on recruiting for the two remaining critical administrative
vacancies. (Two positions if one doesn't count the still-vacant Deputy Director position.)
However, recruiting announcements for the Technical Services Manager and the Central Library
Administrator positions were distributed to library staff July 18, 2008.
September 5, 2008 Update: Although the July 30, 2008 deadline for submitting applications for
these positions has long since come and gone, Szabo did not include on his agenda for his monthly meeting
of managers on September 4th a report on his progress in hiring for either of these positions, nor did he
refer to this issue in his comments during that meeting.
September 12, 2008 Update: Library managers received an email this past week notifying
them of yet another county-wide freeze on hiring, this one through the end of the year.
Not received so far is any email explaining whether (or how) this decree affects the recruitment/hiring of
AFPL's long-vacant Central Library Administrator and Technical Services Manager positions. This lack of
information leaves everyone needlessly wondering whether these two positions are indeed caught in the freeze
along with all the other vacancies at AFPL, or whether they will be filled before Christmas because recruiting
efforts were (formally, anyway) already in progress, or because the library director will be able to convince
the county manager to exempt these two key positions from the hiring freeze.
County-wide hiring freezes are just one reason library employees hate to see library directors - and the slow-footed,
obstructive-at-every-turn AFPL personnel department - dilly-dallying with filling the library system's vacant
positions.
October 9, 2008 Update: At his October meeting of library managers, library director John Szabo mentioned nothing about
the progress - or reasons for the lack of progress - in filling either the Central Library Administrator position or the
Technical Services Manager position.
November 12, 2008 Update: Ditto for Szabo's November meeting with library managers.
January 10, 2009 Update: Ditto for Szabo's December 2008 and January 2009 meetings with library managers.
February 19, 2009 Update: Ditto for Szabo's February 16th meeting with library managers.
March 6, 2009 Update: Ditto for Szabo's March 5th meeting with library managers.
April 3rd Update: Ditto for Szabo's April 2nd meeting with library managers.
June 12th Update: Szabo cancelled his May meeting with library managers. At his June 4th meeting with managers,
Szabo discussed the latest hiring freeze resulting from the current round of county budget cuts, but he did not
mention how the freeze had affected or would affect his decisions about or plans for filling these particular
key administrative vacant positions.
Read items previously posted to this section of AFPLWATCH
Notice something about the library that makes no sense?
Contribute an item to "Inquiring Minds"
Dept. of Wishful Thinking
Read items previously-posted to this section of AFPLWATCH
Heard or read a prediction about the library
that's wildly unrealistic?
Contribute an item to the Dept. of Wishful Thinking
Challenges Facing Large Library Systems Like AFPL
Webmaster's Note: The still-exhausted survivors of Hurricane
Hooker remain preoccupied with the excruciatingly slow and energy-draining
project of gradually freeing themselves from the embarrassing mediocrity
and dysfunctionality they find themselves and their patrons still mired in.
Meanwhile, luckier librarians in public library systems elsewhere have been
spending at least part of their time figuring out what they need to do
to be more useful to their users.
While AFPL's customers have learned to expect mediocre service from Fulton
County's libraries, AFPL administrators can't expect the library's users to
wait indefinitely for better collections, for better-equipped,
better-staffed, and better-maintained facilities, and for mission-relevant
programming.
This section of AFPLWATCH aims to highlight some of the dozens of current
library service issues and challenges AFPL administrators should be paying
attention to, and finding ways for AFPL managers and staff (those who give
a damn about improving customer service, that is) to effectively address.
Making the Public Library More Environment-Friendly
Posted May 8, 2009
The public library is one of those rare government-operated institutions whose good deeds seem to far outweigh whatever
frustration, harm, or damage it may wreak upon the citizenry.
On the other hand, governments in general and public libraries in particular are not widely regarded as role models for
environmentally-sensitive ways of doing business.
Library collections include all sorts of information on how individuals, families, and businesses can become better
stewards of natural resources. But there are many, many specific ways that libraries could increase the number of
environmentally-responsibile procedures they use to accomplish their own mission.
Last month, Learn-Gasm posted
100 Ways to Make Your Library a Little Greener.
We see no particular obstacles to implementing many of these techniques, policies, and tomorrow. All that's
lacking is a decision among the library system's administrators and managers that environmental sensitivity be factored into
how things are done within the library.
The adoption of even a few of these ideas could make a subtantial difference in the library system's "carbon
footprint" and go a long way toward making the library an even better steward of the taxpayers' dollars than it's already
trying to be.
We found
100 Ways via Stephen's Lighthouse.
Previously-posted "Challenges"
-
The Role of Technologies in - and Around - Libraries
Posted April 16, 2009
-
Whither Librarianship?
Posted September 8, 2008
-
Another Fast-Growing Group of "Underserved" Users?
Posted January 9, 2008
-
The Biggest Elephant in the
Living Room Library?
Posted September 8, 2007
-
Public Libraries: "The People's University" or Asylums for the Homeless?
Posted April 4, 2007
-
Over-Protecting Employees vs. "Throwing Them to the Sharks"
Posted November 29, 2006
-
Convincing People Who Don't Use Libraries to Start Using Them
Posted September 13, 2006
-
Clarifying the Purpose of the Public Library
Posted August 16, 2006
-
What Job Skills Should Today's Librarian Possess?
Posted July 22, 2006
-
Encouraging Creative Employees
Posted June 21, 2006
-
“Fifteen Provocative Statements”
Posted May 17, 2006
-
Library Passion vs. Library Slavery
Posted May 1, 2006
-
A Futurist Predicts the Fate of Libraries
Posted April 5, 2006
-
Keeping Library Techies Happy and Productive
Posted March 16, 2006
-
The Importance of Interactive Library Websites
Posted February 20, 2006
-
Public Libraries and the Homeless
Posted January 6, 2005
-
Services for People Who Never Darken the Library's Door
Posted December 14, 2005
-
"Libraries: Standing at the Wrong Platform, Waiting for the Wrong Train?”
Posted October 31, 2005
-
Maximizing Clarity in the Library Catalog
Posted October 19, 2005
-
An Online Public Access Catalog Manifesto
Posted October 10, 2005
-
“The Truth about Libraryland”
Posted September 6, 2005
-
The Life Cycle of Library Systems
Posted August 11, 2005
-
The Paraprofessional's Lament
Posted August 3, 2005
-
What to Do with "Digital Estates"?
Posted July 18, 2005
-
In Search of an Emotionally Healthy Library
Posted June 6, 2005
-
Are Library Catalogs Necessary?
Posted May 31, 2005
-
How Librarians Will Become Extinct
Posted August 16, 2004
Contribute an item to this section of AFPLWATCH
Wasted Taxpayers' Dollars
- Federal Fines So Far for Fulton County's Sewage Spills into Chattahoochee: $687,676
Posted March 24, 2009
The fines date back to a ten-year-old court order. And the problems are far from fixed,
according to a
story in today's Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Unfortunately, the county isn't obliged to publicize the portion of its budget devoted to paying various fines resulting
from court orders and lawsuits.
- Federal Judge Threatens Fulton County Commissioners with Fines and/or Imprisonment
Posted January 28, 2009
Instead of complying with earlier court orders, the commissioners recently cut the budget for the county's jail, making it
even more likely that the county will be noncompliant with numerous court orders handed down over the past few years. Perhaps
this latest
development will get the commissioners' attention?
- Fours Years and a One Federal Lawsuit Later, County Jail is Still a Mess
Posted January 13, 2009
And county commissioners wonder why everybody who can rid themselves of entanglements with Fulton County
Government is trying to do that, having plenty of evidence that the county cannot, or will not, reform itself.
Yesterday, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution published an
update on one of several county departments in chronic disarray, the county-operated jail.
Spooky Quotation
Posted July 16, 2007
"What happens when we stop focusing energy on things that we can’t control?
That energy gets focused on things that we can control, and ironically, we
end up exerting more influence."
--Peter Bromberg, from
a July 6, 2007 posting to Library Garden
* * *
Read previously-posted quotations from the Post-Hooker era; from the Hooker era
Comic Relief
Dietary Laws for the Library
Posted June 7, 2009
The Illinois-based Anglican Library Society's website includes a section of library satires it calls
Librariana Anglicana. These items are grouped into sub-sections labeled "The Sublime," "The Ridiculous," and "The
Sublime AND The Ridiculous." Enjoy them all, but be sure to find the
Library Dietary Laws, a sobering list of verboten edibles (and drinkables) rendered in Old Testament-ese.
* * * * *
Read library humor items previously posted to AFPLWATCH:
-
"I Hate You, Library Patron!"
Posted November 30, 2008
-
Public Library: Communist Threat
Posted October 22, 2008
-
Odd Stuff People Ask For at Library Service Desks
Posted September 11, 2008
-
Greeting Cards for Co-Workers
Posted July 1, 2008
-
What Do You Call a Group of Librarians?
Posted February 27, 2008
-
Are Your Library Co-Workers Insane?
Posted August 1, 2007
-
Reparations Sought from Public Libraries Nationwide
Posted July 15, 2007
-
Dept. of Literary Humor
Posted June 8, 2007
-
"Go Where the Users Are!"
Posted March 21, 2007
-
"Librarianship, I Wish I Knew How I Could Quit You"
Posted February 1, 2007
-
"Nation's Gays Demand Right to Library Cards"
Posted January 18, 2007
-
When Librarians Attack! DVD Enjoys Brisk Sales
Posted December 13, 2006
-
Help Stamp Out Library Trends!
Posted November 22, 2006
-
What's with Libraries and Those Annoying Golf Pencils?
Posted November 3, 2006
-
"The Annoyed Librarian's" Guide to Summer Fun
Posted August 7, 2006
-
"The Annoyed Librarian's Guide to Public Service"
Posted July 17, 2006
-
Library Spa 2.0
Posted June 14, 2006
-
Are You Geeky Enough to Become a Librarian?
Posted May 6, 2006
-
The Seven Habits of Highly Successful Librarians
Posted January 19, 2006
-
"Rules for Approaching the Kung Fu Librarian’s Desk"
Posted December 14, 2005
-
The Wit & Wisdom of "The Warrior Librarian"
Posted October 26, 2005
-
Ideas for Library Conference Topics
Posted September 20, 2005
-
"Signs, Signs, Everywhere Are Signs..."
Posted September 13, 2005
-
"Guide to Old Fashioned Library Remedies"
Posted September 6, 2005
-
Organizational Administration: A Modern Lexicon
Posted August 11, 2005
-
Spontaneous Human Combustion At The Circ Desk
Posted July 27, 2005
-
The Top 50 Publisher-Rejected Children's Book Titles
Posted July 22, 2005
-
Filing Cabinets Can Be Hazardous to Your Health!
Posted July 11, 2005
-
A Compendium of Funny Reference Questions
Posted June 29, 2005
-
"Do You Work Here?"
Posted June 20, 2005
-
You Know You're a Librarian When...
Posted June 10, 2005
-
Romance Novel Cover Art In Search of Less Euphemistic Titles
Posted May 28, 2005
-
David Letterman's Top 10 Drawbacks to Working in a Cubicle
Posted December 31, 2003
-
Advanced Governance
Posted December 13, 2003
Contribute an item to this section of AFPLWATCH
Relibably-hilarious library humor Internet sites
(updated June 21, 2009):
[R.I.P.]
IFLANET’s
Library Humor
Library Pariah
Love the Liberry
Obnoxious Librarian from Hades
Emily Lloyd's
Shelf Check
The Society of Librarians Who Say Motherfucker
Tales from the "Liberry" [R.I.P.]
Tiny Little Librarian
Bill Barnes’ and Gene Ambaum’s
Unshelved
Amanda Credaro’s
Warrior Librarian
History Lessons
The Library Lawsuits
Upshot
County, Librarians Settle Discrimination Lawsuit
Posted January 8, 2004
Additional links posted January 9 and January 17, 2004
Final two paragraphs updated monthly between January 2004 and July 2004
A settlement has been reached in the case of the racial discrimination
lawsuit against the Atlanta Fulton Public Library. According to
reports in local media, the settlement consists of three payments of
over $6,000,000 each, for a total of more than $18,000,000, to the 8
plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
The settlement ends a bitter struggle that began in September 1999 with
the arrival of Mary Kaye Hooker as AFPL's library director. Testimony
and evidence at the trial showed that library board members repeatedly
expressed their concern to Hooker over the racial make-up of management at
the Central Library. On two occasions, the board demanded a list of Central
managers by race, and board committee minutes recorded board members’
comments about the race of the Central managers and a need to do
something about it. The plaintiffs argued that a May 2000 transfer of
most of Central's managers was the outcome of the board’s concern over
the race of the managers, and that the transfers were equivalent to
demotions.
At the federal trial in January 2002, the jury found for the
plaintiffs. The county appealed the verdicts and the amount of the
jury's damage awards: $23,364,400 million, plus court costs of an additional
$371,316 (later reduced by the judge to a total of $16,859,400).
In June 2003, a panel of the appeals court judges affirmed
the lower court rulings; in July, it rejected the county's request for
the entire court to review the case. The county then appealed the case
to the U.S. Supreme Court, which was scheduled to decide on January 9,
2004 whether or not to grant the appeal.
At its December 17, 2003 meeting, the Fulton County Board of
Commissioners, whose new chair had been elected the previous month,
authorized the county's attorney to make another settlement offer to
the plaintiffs, and the plaintiffs accepted that offer later in
December. The confidential settlement agreement was revealed by WSB-TV
News on January 7th.
Contrary to the initial media report (and subsequent ones), all eight
of the plaintiffs--Janet Bogle, Sherri Bowers, JoLynn Burge, Jean Cornn,
Maureen Kelly, Nancy Powers, Mary Starck, and Katharine Suttell--are
white. Monica Foderingham-Brown, an African-American librarian, had
been part of the suit from the beginning, but the trial judge removed
her from the case after ruling there was insufficient evidence to
support Foderingham-Brown's claim that her transfer had resulted from
her having spearheaded a petition calling for the board to resign well
before the May 2000 transfers.
Read the
story as reported in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Read the
story as reported in the online edition of Library Journal.
Read the
story as reported in the online edition of American Libraries.
Read a
summary of the court's decision written by librarians for librarians.
Read an
analysis of the court's findings published in the Stetson Law Review.
Beween June 6, 2003, when the appeals court upheld the lower court's
guilty verdicts and multi-million-dollar damage awards against Mary Kaye
Hooker and William McClure, and May 19, 2004, when the County Manager
fired Hooker, the Commissioners met twenty-three
times. At any one of those meetings
the commissioners could have voted to no longer pay Hooker's salary and
recommended that McClure be removed from the library's board of trustees;
they did not do that.
The library system's
Board of Trustees met fourteen times between the
appeals court's June 6, 2003 ruling and May 19, 2004, when the County Manager
fired Hooker. At any point during that period, the board could have fired
Hooker for violating federal anti-discrimination laws, but they did not do
so. The trustees also failed to remove McClure from the board, despite the
fact that he, too, violated federal anti-discrimination law.
The Commission's and the library board's failure to dismiss Hooker and
McClure took place amid various demands - for example, the Fulton County
Tax Association's June 2003 "Call to Remove
Fulton Library Director and Library Board Member Found Guilty of Practicing
Discrimination" - that these two individuals be prevented from further
damaging the library system.
After library and county officials failed to act, Georgia's legislators
passed a bill in the spring of 2004 that abolished the library board
of trustees as of June 30, 2004, thus ending McClure's tenure on the
library board. On May 19, 2004, the county manager (empowered as Hooker's
supervisor by the recent legislation) finally fired Hooker.
Read previously-posted updates on the lawsuit,
including a photo of the
plaintiffs
Library Settles Second Lawsuit
Filed for Retaliation Against AFPL Employees
Who Won Previous Lawsuit
In December 2003, a settlement was reached in a separate lawsuit against
AFPL filed by librarians Mary Starck and Maureen Kelly, two plaintiffs in
the previous lawsuit against library system.
The second suit charged both discrimination and retaliation. Kelly protested a
punitive transfer and Starck protested the denial of a job - she had been
the preferred candidate and eventually was chosen only after she filed a
grievance.
The second lawsuit was settled for $250,000. This settlement was in
addition to the $18 million that Fulton County paid to settle the lawsuit
filed by Kelly, Starck, and other AFPL employees in 2000.
One of our favorite quotes from the various news reports about the second lawsuit:
"When I learned we had two of the plaintiffs in the original lawsuit
before us again in EEOC grievances, I was incredulous. Then I was furious.
Nobody could be that stupid, I thought."
-Stephen Dorvee, Vice Chairman, AFPL Board of Trustees,
Alpharetta Revue & News, October 15, 2003
AFPLWATCH's reaction (posted October 20, 2003) to Dorvee's comment:
All library personnel transactions, including recommendations for hire
(like the one for the position Starck interviewed for) and transfers (like
Kelly’s) go through the library's administrative chain of command before
they reach the full board of trustees. That chain includes libary human
resource manager Sylvia Culver, library director Hooker, and the library
trustees' Personnel Committee. Every single person along that chain of
command who signed off on these transactions had to have known the names
of the two individuals involved in those transactions, and that those
individuals were plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the library. If the
"system worked", how did both these actions get past Culver? Past Hooker?
Past the members of the [trustees'] Personnel Committee?
Despite Hooker's attempts to spin to the trustees and to the county's
Equal Employment Opportunity Office how these incidents occurred, Hooker's
fingerprints are all over these personnel actions, right next to those of
former Deputy Director Carolyn Garnes.
Not long after the EEOC grievance was filed that led to the second lawsuit,
Deputy Director Carolyn Garnes abruptly resigned; eight months after that,
Library Director Mary Kaye Hooker was fired. Culver, however, still works
as AFPL's Human Resources Manager.
Background
- Anyone not familiar with the facts of the original lawsuit may want
to read
a summary of the circumstances leading up it.
- Summaries of the testimony given each day during the original trial,
compiled from notes taken by AFPL employees who attended, are posted
here.
Documents
Hurricane Hooker
(August 19, 1999 - May 19, 2004)
"Hooker's  Howlers"
Grab yourself a barf bag and read a sampling of the
lies and distortions from the mouth or word processor of Mary Kaye
Hooker before the County Manager finally fired her on May 19, 2004.
"Daily Affirmations" for Mary Kaye Hooker?
Posted February 21, 2004
"Still Strategizing..."
Posted August 17, 2003
The Ideal Library Director...
...is the opposite of what AFPL had from 1999 to 2004.
Updated May 9, 2003
Library Staff Morale:
In the Proverbial Toilet
Posted May 5, 2003
By the time former library director Mary Kaye Hooker was finally
fired in May 2004 and the former library board was abolished in June
2004, morale among library workers had sunk to its lowest level in over
a decade. To find out why, read "The Floggings
Will Continue Until Morale Improves!"
The Amateur Hour:
AFPL's Trustees at Work
Peacocks on Parade:
Embarrassing Antics of AFPL's Clueless Trustees
Updated May 16, 2005
Examples of the cluelessness and/or ego tripping of AFPL's board of trustees.
"Scoundrel Time"
Final Update: January 21, 2004
William McClure once chaired AFPL's library board and--despite the
successful $18 million lawsuit brought against him and others for race
discrimination against library employees--McClure remained a board member
and committee chair until the former board was abolished by Georgia law
on June 30, 2004.
Shortly after leaving AFPL and until he died on October 25, 2005 at age 57,
McClure "served" the citizens of East Point as a city council member. For
comments from East Point citizens outraged about McClure's antics on the
council, read "Reports about One of Our Former
Illustrious Board Members".
Damning Documents
Down the Rabbit-Hole:
Dispatches from The Surreal Library
Sobering Thoughts in a Troubled Time
Read these Sobering Thoughts, posted during Hooker's regime:
- "Teamwork - and, at AFPL, Its Opposite"
- “Brutal Bosses and Their Prey”
- “Those Who Can, Do; Those Who Can’t, Bully”
- Does this sound like any library director you know?
- Does this sound like any board of trustees you know?
- The Secret Wellspring of "Hookerspeak" Revealed!
- “Does Your Boss Put the ‘I’ in Idiot?”
- "When Dopey's in charge, it's you who's always out of your mind..."
- "Being a Library Director Means Never Having to Say You're
Sorry
--No Matter How Sorry You Are"
- Workplace sociopathy + sadism + narcissism + paranoia = the Business Psychopath
- "Clouds of excuses and disclaimers..."
- "The 10 Deadly Sins of Leadership"
- "Deception of others is closely linked with self-deception...."
A Library System in Shambles
The Bad Drives Away The Good:
The AFPL Brain Drain, 1999-2004
Updated August 17, 2004
For the breathtakingly long list of the many administrative
employees, subject specialists, and computer technicians who were
involuntarily transferred, prematurely retired, or resigned from the
Central Library during (or shortly after) the five-year tenure of
recently-dismissed Library Director Mary Kaye Hooker, check
"Would the Last One Out Please Turn Out
the Lights?"
|
If you have already received--or if ever in your life you do receive--an
application for your city's or county's vacant library director position
from this individual--Mary Kaye Hooker, aka Mary Kaye Donahue-Hooker aka
Mary Kay Donahue--instruct your interview team to request and review
a free copy of The Hooker Dossier before offering a job
to this applicant.
