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A Sampling of Hooker's Howlers: The Final Year (May 2003 - May 2004) |
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Webmaster's Note: Hooker's prospective employers should
note that Hooker never stopped talking nonsense - to the staff, to the
trustees, and to the press - even during the final year
of her five-year stint at AFPL, and despite the re-education program the
library's trustees decreed for Hooker in February 2004, three months
before she was finally fired.
(The month-long delay in the publication of the minutes of the library
board's meetings means that the library staff became aware of the final
set of Howlers several weeks after Hooker got the hook on May 19, 2004.)
Howler #147 Posted June 21, 2004
Category: Dept. of Alarming Cluelessness
Library Director Mary Kaye Hooker: "We did a projection of how much leasing that we do each
year....We...lease quite a lot of space, so that's something we'll
have to look at. I'd say that it's roughly $500,000 per year...."
[Minutes, page 13, of the April 28, 2004 meeting of AFPL's Board of Trustees]
[Minutes, pages 42-43, of the April 28, 2004 meeting of AFPL's Board of Trustees:]
Building Committee Chair Clint Johnson: "...It looks like about
$192,000 a year in lease payments is where we stand. Now that's
including the [storage facility for the] Bookmobile. So that's going to
drop, right, because we're moving out of there? So we are really
talking about $145,000 in lease payments for properties."
Hooker: "Is that right, Ed? I thought it was more."
Finance Officer Ed Robinson: "That's pretty close to right
because the largest is the, I think Buckhead on Peachtree [branch]
where we are paying about $70,000."
Johnson: "Yeah. Right."
Hooker: "OK. I was mistaken in my report, then."
Howler #146 Posted June 21, 2004
Category: Dept. of Responsibility-Deflecting Afterthoughts
"There's a lot to be done [in the Technical Services Division] because
it is the backbone of our communications [to the staff and to the
public] of what materials we have. And it's not always been supported
as well as it should have been. So with the leadership of John
[Hilinski] and Michelle [Carnes], I think we will be in great shape."
[Minutes, page 17, of the April 28, 2004 meeting of AFPL's Board of Trustees]
Howler #145 Posted June 21, 2004
Categories: Dept. of Blaming the Victims / Dept. of Administrative Overkill
"I think it's one thing to say that I've been to training, but if you
are going to develop your next generation of leaders and make sure
that the message is delivered uniformly, you need all your leaders
involved. So we have gotten quotes for about 25 people to attend these
various types of workshops...." [Minutes, page 19, of the April 28, 2004
meeting of AFPL's Board of Trustees]
Howler #144 Posted June 21, 2004
Category: Dept. of Baldfaced Lies
Library Director Mary Kaye Hooker: "Our cluster leaders are preparing
an overall training and assessment document for all staff to ensure
quality performance levels. We had begun this some time ago. And now I
think Anne Haimes and Sylvia are bringing that together. And it should
be at least maybe a draft [by] June, do you think, or before?"
Human Resources Manager Sylvia Culver: "Right. June time frame."
Hooker: "Because it's a lot of data entry that has to be done.
But it will give us a snapshot. And then we are going to require each
manager to be responsible that each one of their staff is developed.
And some people can go years and kind of slide around. But that is not
going to happen anymore. Everyone is going to be on a training schedule.
And that will assure that they can progress throughout the system."
[Minutes, pages 19-20, of the April 28, 2004 meeting of AFPL's Board
of Trustees]
Howler #143 Posted June 21, 2004
Category: Dept. of "Who's On First?"
Library Director Mary Kaye Hooker: "...The Andrew Young
reception, that's scheduled for sometime in August now. Francine,
where did you go? There you are. Do we have an absolute August date?
Auburn Avenue Research Library Administrator Francine Henderson:
"No. We have a 24th September date."
Hooker: "We've got money for the reception, but we know it's
around August now."
Henderson: "It's in September."
Hooker: "It's now September?"
Henderson: "And he has it on his calendar."
Hooker: "It's in September now. OK. It's moved again."
Henderson: "It's moved again."
Hooker: "All right. The Georgia State AARP has been
extraordinary, and they're going to pay for that whole reception. That
is just incredible."
[Minutes, page 21, of the April 28, 2004 meeting of AFPL's Board of Trustees]
Howler #142 Posted June 21, 2004
Category: Dept. of Baldfaced Lies
"...Our SIRSI implementation has gone extremely well. There are always
little tweaks and bumps when you--it's just like moving into a new
house. But I don't think anybody wants to go back [to CARL] yet. They
really see the potential in this, and the public has well-received
it...." [Minutes, page 23, of the April 28, 2004 meeting of AFPL's
Board of Trustees]
Howler #141 Posted June 21, 2004
"...Fulton County IT [staff]...are going to be meeting with us very
shortly on some problems with our [Internet] filtering project that's
been annoying us for a long time...." [Minutes, page 23, of the
April 28, 2004 meeting of AFPL's Board of Trustees]
AFPLWATCH Comment:
Yeah, and annoying the library's customers for a lot longer than
that.
Howler #140 Posted June 21, 2004
Category: Dept. of Mercifully Aborted Plans
Discussion ensued regarding AFPL's suspended bookmobile services. Mary
Kaye Hooker reported that staff needed to drive the bookmobiles have
either retired or been re-directed to branch services. Ms. Hooker
indicated that she would have the following completed by the June
Board of Trustess meeting:
- Training Plan
- Steps on Collection Development Plan
- Performance Measures and Statistics
- Branch Service Hours and Configurations (based on the staffing
situation as it exists today)
- Timelines for the successive steps to be taken to include a plan
for the bookmobile.
--Excerpts from notes taken at the board's Service Standards
Committee meeting of May 12, 2004
Howler #139 Posted May 14, 2004
Category: Dept. of Denial
"...We have over 50 positions frozen and we are going to look at
what we need to do if we can't fill those because of the budget situation
in the County. I really look at this as an opportunity for us to
re-examine just how we are staffing and the particular skill sets that
our communities need versus what we have been offering in the past.
So these vacant positions give us an opportunity to come to the Board
with some different proposals that would examine our ability to serve
the communities." --Mary Kaye Hooker to the library board of
trustees at the board's March 24, 2004 meeting [Minutes, pages 19-20]
AFPLWATCH Comments:
Would any other county department head with over 50 vacant positions
(and that was in late March--it's way more than 50 now) be merely promising to "look
at what we need to do" months after such a catastrophe had accumulated
around their department? How long does Hooker plan to stare at this
figure before actually doing something about it?
Every time since the hiring freeze began that a library staff member
has publicly asked Hooker about the inevitability of cutting back on
the number of hours the county's libraries are open, or about plans
for shutting down some of the least busy libraries to cope with the
library system's horrific staff shortage, Hooker supplies the same
lame, illogical reply: "We mustn't be perceived as retaliating against
the public."
Who's talking about "retaliating"? Governments can only provide what
they can afford, and can keep facilities open only if they can afford
to pay enough people to make keeping those buildings open worthwhile.
If a drop in tax revenues prevent the government from continuing to
operate a 32-branch library system, then it makes sense to scale back
the number of branches and/or the number of operating hours until more
prosperous times. Where's the "retaliation" in that--or does Hooker
just have the word retaliation on her brain?
Of course the public will be disappointed when library
services are curtailed, but life is full of disappointments, and
administrators are paid very handsome salaries to, among other things,
regretfully announce such disappointments when circumstances
dictate them.
Hooker doesn't help matters by exhorting staff to "read the news on
ALA's web site about all the public library systems across the country
that are closing branches, cutting back on hours, laying off staff,"
etc. We know all about that. Our question is: Why aren't we doing
precisely those same things here in Atlanta?
By perpetually promising to "look at" the ever-scarcer staff resources
available to AFPL, Hooker, the board, and the commissioners are
simply hoping to avoid being criticized for being responsible stewards
of the county's dwindling resources. Why doesn't Hooker just admit
that she and the board are willing to grind the library staff into the
ground before they make the slightest adjustments to the services
offered by the chronically underfunded Atlanta-Fulton Public Library
System?
And, lest we forget, AFPL isn't merely soldiering on with inadequate
resources that strain the stamina of the staff it still has. Oh, no,
library administrators are forging full speed ahead with their plans
to open--and staff--four new branches. Those fiscally untenable
decisions are going to further thin out AFPL's current personnel when
yet more vacancies are created in existing facilities as some
employees leave their current positions for positions at the new
branches.
One thing's certain. The library staff doesn't need Hooker spouting
Pollyannaesque malarky about the library's critical and still-growing
staffing shortages being an "opportunity" for re-examining "skill sets."
The staffing shortage is an opportunity for triaging staff to the busiest
branches and for reversing the insane practice of spreading the staff
too thinly over its far-flung empire.
The library needs a leader who is smart enough to know what data to
look at to determine where the current manpower needs are most critical,
courageous enough to announce and implement the painful decisions about
where service cuts must be made (however "temporarily"), and articulate
enough to explain the needs for these cuts to the board, to the
commissioners, and to the public. Soon. Now. Yesterday.
Can we see a show of hands, please? Is Mary Kaye Hooker this person?
Howler #138 Posted May 14, 2004
Category: Dept. of Misplaced Priorities
"Our biggest challenges remain to maintain the strength and depth
of our partnerships with the many people we work with in organizations
to find objective ways to demonstrate our value for the dollars invested
in the Library by taxpayers and to find additional sources of revenue
to maintain and enhance our services." --Mary Kaye Hooker, to
the library board of trustees at the board's March 24, 2004 meeting [Minutes, page 16]
AFPLWATCH Comment:
Really? These are the "biggest challenges" facing the library? We
would've thought those were (a) finding someone with the authority,
integrity, and gumption to send Hooker, a.s.a.p., as far away from
Fulton County's taxpayers as they can get her, and (b) locating eleven
intelligent, diligent, and non-amnesiac citizens to replace the current
library board.
In any case, Hooker's inability to "find additional sources of revenue"
after five years at AFPL and the board's inability to do that
since it was created over 20 years ago would seem to indicate
that this crew ain't the one that's going to meet that challenge,
however near the top of the list it happens to be.
Howler #137 Posted April 12, 2004
Category: Dept. of Hoisted On Her Own Petard
"As a result of the vacancies in key positions such as Head of
Technical Services, Central Library Administrator, and the Deputy Director,
the Director of Libraries is now responsible for six to eight hours per
day of personnel work." --Mary Kaye Hooker to the board of trustees
["Highlights of Monthly Activities: February - March 2004" page 3]
AFPLWATCH Comments:
- And whose fault is it, Ms. Hooker, that these people are no longer
working for the library, and are therefore unable to help you with
all this personnel work? You can't have it both ways, you know: run
people off in the middle of a hiring freeze, then whine about how
overworked you are. (Well, I guess you can whine, but we don't think
you'll get much sympathy.)
- Since other Central Library employees have noticed that you don't exactly
burn the midnight oil, exactly when during your workday do these "six to
eight hours" fall? When are you doing all that "strategizing" you claim is
a library director's real job, if you're forced to fool around with
personnel matters all day long?
- Hypothetical Question: If Hooker managed to be successfully
sued twice for the "personnel work" she accomplished before she had
so much more of it to contend with, what's going to be the liklely result
of Hooker devoting "six to eight hours per day" to personnel issues?
All library employees are relieved to see the board--after spending
eight years trying to micromanage the library itself and after wasting
millions of dollars in settling personnel-related lawsuits--has returned
to the Library Director the authority to manage the library's personnel.
However, no one is happy that the board didn't first find AFPL another
director! Hundreds tremble at the prospect of the still-to-be-trained-in-employment-law
Hooker poring over the records of proposed disciplinary actions, the
numerous threatening letters and/or settlement offers from employees'
lawyers, the latest news of the Personnel Board overriding yet another of
Hooker's personnel decisions, "and the like" (to use one of the more
annoying phrases often used by "the Director of Libraries").
Howler #136 Posted April 12, 2004
Categories: Dept. of Carts-Before-Horses
Dept. of Airy Persiflage
Dept. of Out-right Lies
"...Baker & Taylor is going to provide us some resources, names of
people that we can contact in their vast experience. And we're going
to look at that and see if it won't enable us to upgrade our skills
even more in the back room operations and maybe help some of the staff
too. You know, it's always nice to have a refreshing point of view.
And this is the first time they've been our principal vendor. So we're
going to look and see what we can learn from them." --Mary Kaye
Hooker to the library trustees at the board's February 25, 2004 meeting
[Minutes, pages 33-34]
AFPLWATCH Comments:
- How many other library directors would allow a vendor to dictate
how the "backroom operations" of their library systems will function?
- How could the skills or experience of any vendor compensate for
the inexperience of library employees?
A little history here: Two years ago, Carolyn Garnes
and Mary Kaye Hooker transferred out of the Collection Development Unit
the Unit's two selection coordinators, each of them with five years
experience doing their jobs; Garnes and Hooker eventually replaced those
two coordinators with two individuals having no experience doing those tasks.
When the Unit's manager later resigned, Hooker put in charge of the Unit
yet another person with zero collection development experience. Now
Hooker's excitedly telling the trustees that a vendor will
mysteriously remedy this wholesale obliteration of the library system's
selection coordinating experience? A vendor whose "vast experience" is
primarily stocking bookstores.
- And, no, it's not "always nice to have a refreshing point of view."
Not if adopting that point of view wastes time and money. Not if that
point of view is merely re-inventing the wheel instead of actually
improving something or introducing something genuinely new to whatever
process you're talking about. Not if that point of view is geared to
someone else's priorities--a vendor's, say--instead of what your own
priorities are, or ought to be.
Besides, using Baker & Taylor as the library's primary book supplier
doesn't constitute "a refreshing point of view," it merely means that,
for better or worse, a different company gets the lion's share of the
libary's money this year and that selectors must learn a new set
of ordering procedures than the ones they'd mastered before--the same year
they have to learn a new circulation system, incidentally. Whether giving
a particular vendor a primary contract turns out to be "refreshing" remains
to be seen--at least for anyone except Mary Kaye Hooker, who's already
decided that It Shall Be So.
- Contrary to Hooker's claim, this is NOT the first time the library
has used Baker & Taylor as its primary materials vendor. There must be
at least a hundred AFPL employees who remember the many years
Baker & Taylor supplied the library with its materials. (Remember those
weekly BATAB computer printouts, anyone?)
For Hooker, though, we must always remember that nothing happened at the
library before she came on the scene--ergo, Baker & Taylor is a
"new" primary vendor for AFPL, with the implication for the gullible and
equally-amnesiac trustees that (a) B&T must be somehow better than other
vendors, and (b) the very decision to change vendors is somehow "refreshing"--
as opposed to, say, disruptive, annoying, or counterproducive.
Perhaps the real reason behind Hooker's putting such a silly, positive spin on
Baker & Taylor's getting this year's primary book contract is revealed on
page 2 of her "Highlights of Monthly Activities: February-March 2004":
"Brodart, the former primary vendor for our books, has requested a
review of all documentation pertaining to the award of the RFP to
Baker & Taylor."
Is this another potential lawsuit we see looming before us? There are
some who believe there are plenty of grounds for one.
Howler #135 Posted April 12, 2004
Category: Dept. of Airy Persiflage
"...We've worked with Technical Services staff to enhance their
skill sets, and we've given them a whole list of things that may not
mean much to you all but are really important to the ongoing operation
of the Library and it will upgrade all of the staff's skill sets in
that division." --Mary Kaye Hooker to the library board at its
February 25, 2004 meeting [Minutes, page 33]
AFPLWATCH Comments:
- What is Hooker talking about?
Does she mean the time recently when she convened the few tech services staff members
she hasn't transferred to branch libraries and recited to them a
list of recommendations yet another consultant made several years ago?
If so, reading out loud to the staff (who, incidentally, are already
doing the things the consultant recommended) hardly rises to the level
of "working with Technical Services staff."
If Hooker isn't using the "royal we" in this statement, is she
perhaps referring to henchperson Michelle Carnes who--with zero
experience in technical services before Hooker appointed her as
interim manager for that hapless staff--is hardly in a position to
"enhance" the skills of anyone in Tech Services?
Or maybe Hooker is talking about her and Carnes' hare-brained scheme to
train everyone on the floor to catalog library materials? As if this
could be done in the blink of an eye by the single cataloger now
employed by the 32-branch Atlanta-Public Library System.
- How do "skill sets" differ from plain-old "skills"? Does it
make Hooker feel somehow more au courant to refer to skills as
"skill sets"? Does Hooker think using jargon like this gains her
credibility with an ever-more-skeptical board of trustees?
- In light of her massive involuntary transfers of trained personnel
out of Technical Services and the subsequent dumping of tech services
functions onto untrained branch staff, how come Hooker persists in
labeling the ghost-town of the Central Library's 7th floor as a
"division" of the library system?
Howler #134 Posted April 12, 2004
Dept. of Ignored Instructions
From the February 25, 2004 meeting of the library board of trustees [Minutes,
page 54]:
Trustee [and Nominating Committee Chair] Stephanie Moody: "...I
would love to hear from the staff if they know people in the community who
are active, who love libraries and attend and come to libraries. If they
know of someone, I would be glad to entertain those names...."
Trustee Roger Rupnow: "I wondered if the branch managers might have
some of their best customers in mind. We maybe ought to communicate to the
managers n a hurry that we're looking for some prospects so if we've got
people who are regular library users...."
Moody: "So, Mary Kaye, could we maybe post a notice out?"
Library Director Mary Kaye Hooker: "Yes."
Acting Chair Stephen Dorvee: "Thank you."
Trustee John Thomas: "Good idea."
AFPLWATCH Comment:
We polled a batch of managers, and, a month after Hooker said this,
none of them had received any such request for board nominees from Hooker.
Howler #133 Posted March 15, 2004
Category: When in Doubt, Just Make It Up!
“I believe that Brooklyn has the greatest number of bookmobiles
of any library system in the country, which surprised me when I saw
that. I think it’s a fleet of about 22 bookmobiles. So that
community has decided that that is an essential service.”
--MKH to the library board of trustees at its January 28, 2004
meeting [Minutes, page 45]
AFPLWATCH Comment:
From the Brooklyn Public Library's website (accessed 3/9/04):
“The system comprises one central library and 59 branch libraries,
plus 2 bookmobiles.”
Howler #132 Posted March 15, 2004
Category: Dept. of Wild Exaggerations
“…Many of our libraries now are doing things on nutrition and
how to have healthy, tasty meals without having fat and calories
attached to it.” --MKH to the library board of trustees at
its January 28, 2004 meeting [Minutes, page 28-29]
“[The Fulton County Health Department] have been…providing
literature that we are making available at all of our sites.”
--MKH to the library board of trustees at its January 28, 2004
meeting [Minutes, page 29]
AFPLWATCH Comment:
"Many of our libraries"? "All of our sites"? As usual, MKH gives no
specifics, and her claim certainly comes as a huge surprise to the
people actually working in AFPL's branch libraries, who don't know
what the hell she's talking about.
Howler #131 Posted March 15, 2004
Category: Bald-faced Lies
From the Board of Trustees' January 28, 2004 meeting:
Trustee Bob Fulton: “…We have a lot of short courses that we
run at the library, and they [are] very beneficial to those who
take it. But you can ask the question: Are those a Library function
versus somebody else’s function? …When we have the tightening of
budget strings, then it’s extremely important that we look at
[eliminating] these peripheral activities…rather than taking
out…the basic services, such as the collections and the things that
go on in a normal library….” [Minutes, p. 44-45]
Library Director Mary Kaye Hooker: “…We...provide venues for
other people to offer…courses. We don’t do those courses. We have
partners who do those courses for us. So it is a partnership and
it’s a win/win for everybody….” [Minutes, p. 46]
AFPLWATCH Comment:
This is a complete lie, and this was not the first time Hooker has
told it to obscure the facts about how she is using (and abusing)
scarce staff resources.
Pressured by Hooker almost from the moment she arrived at AFPL in 1999
to de-emphasize collections and emphasize "programming," library
staff--including in many instances untrained, inept, or unwilling
library employees--have been forced to offer classes to the public in
everything from personal money management to how to use various
computer software packages.
Branch libraries are still offering a slew of cobbled-together
"courses" to the great unwashed--and, to judge from usually abysmal
attendance records, largely uninterested--public. The time and energy
devoted to teaching these classes is diverted from--guess where?--the
time and energy that would otherwise have been devoted to providing
basic library services (such as being available to staff service
desks, for starters).
Outside "partners" conducting classes in branch libraries (or at
Central) is a rare event, not a typical one. This "howler" of
Hooker's is a perfect example of Hooker's wishful thinking in the
service of self-congratulation, not to mention its usefulness to
Hooker in deceiving the library's trustees about the deployment of
staff resources. And it's an insult to the dozens of hapless library
workers pressed into services as "trainers" over the past few years.
Howler #130 Posted March 12, 2004
Category: Dept. of Ignored Instructions
“After much discussion, the Committee asked that the following be handled: Distribute pages
7-12 of the strategic planning document via e-mail to AFPL staff for comments. Once comments
are received, they will be consolidated, put in a bulleted format and mailed to the BOT by March
4, 2004 for review. John Hilinski will handle this task.” --Service Standards & Finance
Committee Meeting, February 19, 2004 [Notes, page 1]
AFPLWATCH Comment:
Did anybody working for AFPL ever see this, much less
"make comments"?
“Homeland Security - The Director of Libraries suggested (per the request of the Atlanta City
Council) that notices be posted throughout the Library advising patrons about the extent of their
privacy when using the library. The Committee agreed that such notices be posted.”
--Service Standards & Finance Committee Meeting, February 19, 2004 [Notes, page 2]
AFPLWATCH Comments:
Has anybody seen any such notice posted at any AFPL library? And why did the city council have
to make such a request-why didn’t the administration of the library system initiate these notices
itself, as so many other library systems across the United States did many months ago? How come
safeguarding the privacy rights of library users is more of a priority for the city council than it is for
the library director and its trustees?
Howler #129 Posted March 12, 2004
Category: Division of Abandoned "Initiatives"
First she was in charge of it, then she was suddenly not in charge, and
now she's apparently back in charge of it--well, sort of--or at least on
paper. We're talking about that often-referred-to but profoundly elusive
"Customer Service Initiative" and Hooker's Jill-of-All-Trades Michelle
(rhymes with "Garnes") Carnes:
“Carnes…provide[s] administrative oversight for the Customer Service
Training Team that is responsible for developing and implementing staff
customer service training.” --Hooker's "AFPL Project Status Report:
February 2004,” page 10
Howler #128 Posted March 12, 2004
Category: Dept. of Repeated Reschedulings
From Hooker's “AFPL Project Status Report: February 2004”:
“A 3rd quarter [2004] completion date is anticipated [for repairing the
two-year-old crater in front of the Central Library ]” [page 2]
AFPLWATCH Comments:
September 2004: According to an announcement at the August
5th Agency Managers Meeting, the completion date has been moved ahead
again, this time to "the 1st Quarter of 2005."
March 2005: According to a "Project
Status Report" dated February 14, 2005 ("Board Document #05-17"), the
completion date for repairing the crater has again been moved forward,
this time to "2nd Quarter 2005." Somehow we just
knew that Hooker's successor would get a chance to see the gaping crater
Hooker left for posterity.
May 2005: According to a "Project
Status Report dated April 20, 2005 ("Board Document #05-43"), the
completion date for repairing the crater is now July 2005.
June 2005: According to a comment made
by AFPL Library Director John Szabo at the June 2nd meeting of library
managers, work on the crater should be completed by "late September/early
October [2005]."
Howlers #122 - #127 Posted March 11, 2004
Category: Dept. of Airy Persiflage
From Hooker's “Highlights of Monthly Activities: January - February 2004” [page 2]:
“Significant achievements”:
“Establishment of the Library’s first professionally staffed Human Resources Department”
AFPLWATCH Comment: Yeah, right, resulting in the first-ever successful lawsuits
against the library. Great improvement there, Ms. Hooker! At least the previous people in charge
of the personnel office at AFPL (who, in Hooker’s opinion, amount to something like chopped liver)
didn’t stand idly by while the library director discriminated against library employees and then
illegally retaliated against two of the ones who sued her for doing so.
“Staff training has been provided at a level previously unheard of in the history of the system:
on-going, continuous, and relevant to all staff.”
AFPLWATCH Comment: It’s unheard of all right--because it isn't happening. The
current level of staff competence owes nothing to Mary Kaye Hooker’s regime, which she began
by jettisoning to a branch library the library system’s certified full-time trainer and dismantling the
library's Training Department. There’s certainly nothing more “on-going” or “continuous” about
staff training these days, such as it is. “Relevant”? What a subjective, completely unsubstantiated
claim that is.
“New strategic plans for branches and services, technology, and EEO.”
AFPLWATCH Comment: Say wha??? Branches have no--or are a part of no--"strategic
plans" that they know about. And where’s that EEO strategic plan-has anybody but
Hooker seen it? Does it involve anything beyond the board's sending her to EEO training? And
that “new" technology strategic plan-is this the one devised several years ago, the one being
largely ignored, and the one the library has no Technology Manager to implement? Hooker’s still
claiming the mere existence of this ignored document as an "accomplishment"?
Our biggest challenges remain:
(1) To maintain the strength and depth of our Partnerships
AFPLWATCH Comment: Which are few, often misguided, and weak to begin with and
about as deep as (insert metaphor here).
(2) To find objective ways to demonstrate our value for the dollars invested in the library by
taxpayers
AFPLWATCH Comment: Such as not spending over $18 million of the county treasury
on totally avoidable lawsuits?
(3) To find additional sources of revenue to maintain and enhance our services
AFPLWATCH Comment: Hooker’s been at AFPL for almost five years. What is she
waiting for? For the board to get off its collective behind, so she won’t have to make any
fundraising efforts herself? Hooker came to AFPL crowing about her abilities as a donor magnet
when what she’s turned into is a donor repellant-and Hooker’s certainly not done anything
substantial in the way of fundraising for AFPL like raising enough money to start an endowment for
purchasing library materials beyond what the county can afford to spend on materials each year.
The grants that have come to the library during Hooker’s regime have tended to be for flashy
peripheral services, not for building core collections.
Howler #121 Posted March 11, 2004
Category: Bald-faced Lies
“Budgets [for library materials] have been allocated with more flexibility for the staff than
before.” ---Mary Kaye Hooker to the library board of trustees [“Highlights of Monthly
Activities: January - February 2004,” page 3]
AFPLWATCH Comment:
Notice that Hooker doesn’t spell out how this is true; she didn’t do that because it’s simply not
true. In fact, the opposite is: this year branches are being forced to spend money with a vendor
(FUBUTU) that mainly stocks materials many branches do not need. To add inflexibility to
inflexibility, branches are also being forced to spend money with a processing company (Cadence)
when the whole point of the library’s bidding out contracts for providing library materials was to
award contracts only to vendors who also do their own processing. This is not “more flexibility”--this
is Hooker manipulating the county’s contract process to suit her wacky ideas of how to operate a
library system--such as reassigning to branches the experienced library employees who formerly
cataloged and/or processed library materials that did not arrive shelf-ready in favor of paying an
inexperienced (and, to judge from all their calls to AFPL staff for help, an ill-equipped) outside
vendor to do that work instead.
Howler #120 Posted March 11, 2004
Category: Annals of Abysmal Leadership
“Positions continue to be frozen. Exceptions can be made upon appeal to the County
Manager.” -Mary Kaye Hooker to the library board of trustees [“Highlights of Monthly
Activities: January - February 2004,” page 3]
AFPLWATCH Comment:
What is Hooker waiting for? How many appeals has she
made to the County Manager since he imposed the hiring freeze to “thaw” the hiring of the
numerous critical administrative vacancies within the library system? If Hooker at least attempts
to make a few appeals, is the County Manager determined to turn a deaf ear to any pleas
emanating from the thoroughly discredited, uncredible, and frequently loony Mary Kaye Hooker?
This possibility is yet another way Hooker’s continued employment with the county harms the
library system.
Howler #119 Posted March 11, 2004
Category: Hookerspeak: Redefining the Word “Year”
“Purchasing Plan [for library materials] allows for purchasing year round.”
-Mary Kaye
Hooker to the library board of trustees [“Highlights of Monthly Activities: January - February 2004,”
page 6]
AFPLWATCH Comment:
Interim Collection Management Librarian Michelle Carnes has instructed branch staff to expend
100% their materials budgets by August 13, 2004. Has the Fulton County Commission decided
they’re going to give the library more funds to tide us over between mid-August and, say,
mid-February 2005, when (if the authorizing paperwork isn't stalled on some administrator's desk)
branches will be allowed to resume ordering library materials??? We doubt it. Welcome to
Hookerspeak, wherein the word “year” has its own special meaning-albeit one that library
customers might not cotton to.
Howler #118 Posted February 25, 2004
Category: Dept. of Self-Confident Leadership
"I just got out of the Fulton County Board of Commissioners
meeting....And I took two staff members with me so that my ears
would not deceive me." --MKH to the library board of trustees at
the board's December 17, 2003 meeting [Minutes, pp. 27-28]
"Hookerspeak" Translation: "I don't go anywhere by myself--especially if I'm
expected to represent the library; I really don't know enough about
the library to respond to any questions someone might ask me. And,
hey, I like the way I can disrupt my underlings' work days by
impulsively demanding that they keep me company at boring meetings.
Besides, forcing one or more highly-paid administrators to tag along
with me means that I never have to take any notes or make an effort
to remember anything I've heard!"
Howler #117
Posted February 7, 2004
Category: Dept. of Airy Persiflage
An excerpt from one of the many versions of Library Director Mary
Kaye Hooker's resume:
"Published extensively on collection development and preservation."
This claim, it would seem, is yet another of Hooker's exercises in
mendacity. As usual, Hooker offers no details that a potential
employer could use to verify her claim.
A search of Library Literature back through 1980 reveals no
articles about collection development that Hooker wrote herself, and
only two articles about collection development that Hooker (then
Donahue) co-authored:
- Donahue, Mary K. & others. "Collection Development Policy Making:
Research Design and Implementation at Texas A&M University."
Collection Building,6:18-21 (Fall 1981).
- Gyeszly, Suzanne & M.K. Donahue. "Circulating Serials at Texas A&M: A Preservation
& Collection Development Project." Serials Review 9:91-6 (Winter 1983).
...and only one book chapter about library preservation, also
co-authored:
- Donahue, Mary K. & others. "Preservation Techniques to Inhibit
Collection Deterioration of New Acquisitions." In Academic Libraries:
Myths & Realities (American Association of Research Libraries, 1984),
pp. 249-253.
Remember Hooker's glib (not to mention patently false) remark that
"every library gets sued these days"? Hooker would probably sneer that
"everybody pads their resumes" as well. Certainly many of us remember
the exposure a few years ago of former AFPL board chair Roy Yancy's
false claim that he had been awarded a graduate degree that the school
in question denied all knowledge of. Not that being caught padding a
resume damaged Yancy in the eyes of his colleagues on the library
board. Au contraire. When Yancy died shortly after leaving the
board, the trustees hastily re-named a branch library after
him--conveniently ignoring the fact that only a few years before they
had decreed that branches could no longer bear the names of
individuals, and had stripped from several branches the names that
they'd been given decades ago. But we digress....
In the case of Hooker's resume-padding, three co-authored articles
about two different subjects does not, by any stretch of anyone's
(except Hooker's) imagination, constitute "extensive" publication
in two separate areas of library research. And as any library
employee who's endured Hooker's four-year-plus regime can ruefully
report, collection development and preservation have been at the very
bottom of Hooker's administrative priorities--if she ever had any.
And how about this little nugget of hilarity, also from the same
version of Hooker's resume:
"Strengths include productivity analysis, staff and facility
restructuring/streamlining, multi-type library consortia development,
automation including distance education, minority services."
Yeah, right, we've seen so much of all those things throughout
Hooker's stint at AFPL, haven't we? The consensus of opinion on
Hooker's primary accomplishment during her tenure? Keeping those
monthly paychecks--which total $116,502 a year--rolling in for so long
after it was clear to anybody with a brain cell that the board's
hiring her had been a horrible, and increasingly costly, mistake.
As Hooker's inevitable departure from AFPL grows ever closer, we look
forward with interest to discovering how, in the next version of her
resume, spinmeister Hooker will attempt to finesse the bald facts that
a federal jury found Hooker guilty of violating employees' civil
rights; that the jury's verdict cost a cash-strapped county government
$18 million to settle; that Hooker was named as a defendant in a
further lawsuit for retaliating against two of the original
plaintiffs--which cost the same county government another $250,000 to
settle; and that a post-lawsuit $112,000 study commissioned by Hooker's
employers to look into allegations against her didn't exactly
exonerate her of the widespread charges that Hooker habitually
mismanages and abuses library employees.
Maybe it's simply time for this person to make one of those dramatic
midlife career changes we've all read so much about?
Howler #116 Posted January 13, 2004
"On December 1st...responsibility [for preparing a summary of monthly
comments from library customers and for developing training in customer
service for library staff] was transferred to the co-chairs of the newly
created Customer Service Training Team." Mary Kaye Hooker's
"AFPL Project Status Report, December 2003," page 5
AFPLWATCH Comment:
Well, folks, it's morphed again! First Hooker created the Customer Service
Department. Then, six months later, she dismantled it and gave all the
associated tasks to a secretary. Now Hooker's annointed a "Customer
Service Training Team." Have any of these grand maneuvers resulted in
improved service to library customers?
Howlers #114 and #115
Posted December 19, 2003
“Technically, I’m supposed to be reviewed in March and this year
it was pushed back for various reasons…” -Mary Kaye Hooker to
the trustees at their October 22, 2003 meeting [Minutes, page 89]
AFPLWATCH Comment:
So what happened last spring? Were you and the board spending too much
time with your lawyers to bother with a performance evaluation?
“I am recommending a change in the date of the Director’s annual
evaluation from March to January and June to coincide with that of the
staff. This change in the Board’s by-laws will provide staff an
opportunity to create work plans supportive of the Director and of the
Board.” -Mary Kaye Hooker to the trustees [“Highlights of
Monthly Acivities: October - November 2003,” page 5]
AFPLWATCH Comment:
Golly, it only took 4 years for MKH to get around to pointing this out.
In any case, we suggest the board make sure that at least one task
on her list of assignments-pick one, pick anything-cannot be delegated
to someone else. Only then will Hooker not be able to blame the
totality of her miserable performance on “The Staff,” “budget
exigencies,” etc. Besides, “staff” have their own jobs to do without
making sure that everything’s aligned to be “supportive of the
Director and of the Board.” Keeping the damn doors open and the
materials circulating is more important than any director’s
unknown-to-the-rest-of-us work plan or any here-today-gone-tomorrow
“initiative” of the board.
Howler #113
Posted December 15, 2003
Category: Dept. of Grasping-at-Straws
“This year, the Library has had only one grievance filed as of
November 2003.” --Mary Kaye Hooker to the trustees at their
October 22, 2003 meeting [“Highlights of Monthly Activities: October -
November 2003,” page 3]
AFPLWATCH Comment:
Library employees are totally disillusioned with the charade of the Fulton County grievance process.
We suggest employees head directly to the county's Office of Equal Employment Opportunity,
its Employee Assistance Unit, its Personnel Board, or a local attorney's office--and from what we
hear, that’s exactly what they’ve been doing.
Howler #112
Posted December 15, 2003
Category: Dept. of Airy Persiflage
"Training - is key in the formation of staff excellence. With the
staff already evaluating skills system-wide, the next steps include
training for excellence (or recruiting for excellence). Two areas
identified include support for Graduate Level Education both for
retaining Clark Atlanta University’s School of Library and
Information Science or establishing contacts with other accredited
Schools of Library and Information Science. Staff will meet later
this year with representatives of the University of Alabama in this
regard." --Mary Kaye Hooker to the trustees at their October
22, 2003 meeting [“Highlights of Monthly Activities: October -
November 2003,” page 3]
AFPLWATCH Comment:
Hooker's constant blathering about--and zero action on--training aside,
has she not noticed that CAU's library school is going to be shut down
next year? How is anything in Alabama supposed to remedy that? Are
employees going to be piling into vans and racing back and forth across
the border to attend classes there? Or is Alabama going to beam
its library science curriculum at little clots of staff in Atlanta
watching television screens with satellite hookups? And why Alabama
instead of, say, South Carolina or Florida? Or anywhere, for that
matter, if it's that much-ballyhooed but never-experienced-at-AFPL
"long-distance learning" she's got in that visionary little head of
hers?
Incidental notes to MKH:
- Better hurry up and meet with those Alabama folks if you're going
to have "staff" meet with them "later this year"--the faculty at
most universities will be out on Christmas break soon if they aren't
already.
- Unless it's being done so covertly no one has noticed it,
no one at AFPL is "already evaluating skills system-wide."
Howler #111 Posted December 15, 2003:
"Service Delivery Re-organization Strategy"
Senior staff have met and identified a strategy to meet the needs
identified…in the Strategic Plan and in the Budget exigencies….
Among the steps under consideration are the following:
- Reorganization of clusters
- Reduction in 6th floor administrative overhead
- Change/expansion of responsibilities for Cluster leaders
--Mary Kaye Hooker to the trustees at their October 22, 2003
meeting [“Highlights of Monthly Activities: October - November
2003,” page 3]
AFPLWATCH COMMENT:
Hooker can rearrange those silly Clusters of hers till the cows come
home, but that's not going to make them any more relevant or helpful
to service delivery. In fact, if branch staff are missing from their
branches because they are off "consulting" somewhere else, Cluster-cluttered
management could actually interfere with branch service to patrons.
Could someone please remind Hooker that library customers relate to
particular library facilities--not to artifical groupings of
them?
"Reduction in 6th floor overhead"--now that sounds promising.
Does this mean Hooker is "poised" (as she likes to say) to jettison
some of the numerous secretaries she's accumulated over the years
around her 6th floor bunker at Central? That she is ready to transfer
some of those "behind-the-scenes" individuals to "public
service" as she was so willing to do with Technical Services Division
personnel?
Howler #110 Posted December 13, 2003
Category: Dept. of Airy Persiflage
“One of the things that I have become aware of…is the America[n] Society
for Training Development….And they have a worldwide reputation. I need to
investigate that some more, talk to them and then involve not only staff,
but this Board in some of the discussions, not only for ourselves but how
we can tap our untapped potential,…how we can make our resources more
available and more easily used by each member of our community because I
think what we sometimes unknowingly we go to the same sources and as a
result when you go to the same well all the time you may be building up
barriers to communication to success in your outreach and I think--I know
that my goal is to find as many innovative and successful venues for
reaching our community and making our resources effective for each member
of our community. So I’m very grateful for the people that have worked
with me on the Staff and I’m also very grateful for the community support
that I and this organization have been receiving.” --Mary Kay
Hooker to the trustees at their meeting of October 22, 2003 [Minutes,
pages 91-93]
AFPLWATCH Comment:
Earth to Hooker: Will you be coming back to this planet any time soon?
Howler #109 Posted December 10, 2003:
“We want to have bestseller plans at all of our regional branches,
not just here at Central….And that’s a response not only to Staff’s
request, but as a result of the Strategic Plan and our considered
efforts, so they are very excited that we’re moving ahead in that
area.” -Mary Kaye Hooker to the trustees at their meeting on
October 22, 2003 [Minutes, page 58]
AFPLWATCH Comment:
Yeah, we're moving ahead so rapidly in this area that well over a
month after she made this claim, nobody at any Regional Library (nor
anyone anywhere else) has heard hide nor hair of these alleged
bestseller plans.
December 20, 2003 Update:
On December 17th, area and regional branch managers received a memo
from the Collection Development unit informing them that they each had
$11,000 to spend over the next month on bestselling books and “current"
nonbook materials.
- Does this mean that branches wouldn’t have had any bestseller plan
if they hadn’t failed to spend $110,000 of this years funds by the
end of the regular "ordering year"?
- How does the January deadline for the orders from this portion of
unexpended 2003 funds square with the county purchasing office’s
requirement that all 2003 funds be expended in 2003, all 2003 invoices
be paid in 2003, and all materials paid for with 2003 funds be received
by the end of 2003? Has the library director received a dispensation
from the county purchasing department that exempts the library from
these requirements? If so, why the early January deadline on orders?
If not, what’s the point in coming up with a plan that can’t work?
Howler #108 Posted December 9, 2003
Category: Dept. of Airy Persiflage
“In our Grants Department we have created a file of donors from the
last ten years. This is Step One in any fundraising office. And we are
going to begin to keep our contacts with all the donors in this
database.” --Mary Kaye Hooker to the trustees at their October 22,
2003 meeting [Minutes, page 88]
AFPLWATCH Comment:
Here she goes again, talking about library "Departments" that don't
exist. Perhaps Hooker is referring to the library system's "Development
Office" whose manager Brian Williams no longer works at the library?
Shortly after she hired Williams a few years ago, Hooker was bragging
to the board about his compiling a database of donors. Does this mean
Hooker's discarded the database she told the trustees Williams was
creating and is now starting over from scratch?
Is Hooker muttering about "Step One in any fundraising office" four years into her tenure
director as a way of diverting the trustees' attention from how little
money she has raised for the library?
Whatever. But we think that "Step One in any fundraising office" would be having a qualified person
in place to operate that office.
Hooker Howler #107
Posted November 24, 2003
Category: Dept. of Self-Inflicted Wounds
“Presently the Director is filling in for the vacancies of the
Deputy Director, Central Library Head, Head of Technical Services, and
Head of Collection Development.” -Mary Kaye Hooker, “Highlights
of Monthly Activities: September - October 2003” [page 3]
AFPLWATCH Comment:
This is news to the people who worked under these Departed Ones; they
certainly haven’t seen any evidence of this claim, or of her even
coming around or otherwise communicating with them. The more
interesting issue is why there are always so many vacancies in any
regime headed by Hooker.
Howler #106
Posted November 24, 2003
Category: Dept. of Reassuring Noises
“The Ashley Bryan Collection is becoming a reality.” --Mary
Kaye Hooker, “Highlights of Monthly Activities: September - October
2003” [page 2]
AFPLWATCH Comment:
Lord, this “reality” has certainly been a long time a-borning! The trustees
had better hurry up or a whole generation of Atlanta kids will have
grown up and graduated from college without the benefit of Mr. Bryan’s
valuable collection.
Howler #105 Posted November 24, 2003 and December 3, 2003:
[Project Area:] COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT
Project Names, Scope, Timelines: [None, None, and None]
--from Hooker's “AFPL Project Status Report,
October 2003”
and "AFPL Project Status Report, November 2003"
AFPLWATCH Comment:
Yep, there it is, folks, in a nutshell. As far as collection
development goes, AFPL is doing nothing, nada, zero, zilch. Amazing
priorities this "library" administration has....
Howler #104 Posted November 25, 2003:
“The Director and [AFPL Finance Officer] Ed Robinson indicated that
the book bid [for 2004 library materials] would be ready within days
to go to Fulton County for approval, which is five months earlier than
the previous year.” -October 9th meeting of the trustees’
Service Standards Committee [Notes, page 2]
AFPLWATCH Comment:
Hooker's getting the bid over to the county for approval earlier than
this year than in the previous three years she's been Director is
certainly an improvement, but nothing is mentioned here about:
- whether or not the un-named authors of the bid were sufficiently
knowledgeable about technical processes to write it.
- whether or not this year's bid it contains all the minutiae
required for its serving the library well. (For example, are there
provisions in the bid specifying that vendors are to required to
supply different spine labels for Young Adult vs. Juvenile materials?
Are there provisions requiring vendors to provide a mechanism for
selectors to identify some materials for 14-day vs. 28-day circulation
periods--and to embed in the records they send to the library for its
catalog the corresponding media codes? Both these provisions were
omitted from the 2003 book bids.)
- whether the library will forego in 2004 the confusion-producing
allocations for so-called "secondary vendors" for each type of library
material the library purchases.
It remains to be seen whether earlier approval of the commissioners
will result in a larger window of opportunity
for library selectors to order library materials than the library has
enjoyed in all the years since Hooker's arrival. It wasn't her fault
that the county changed its purchasing requirements, but it certainly
is her fault that, during the entire four-plus years she's been at
AFPL, she has failed to convince the county manager that the county’s
purchasing regulations prevent the library from ordering materials
for library users throughout the year, and to negotiate more realistic
purchasing mechanisms for the library.
Howler #103 Posted November 22, 2003
Category: Dept. of Hookerspeak
“…We have made a concerted effort over the last two years, probably
three years, to move as much back room staff to the public service
sector as possible and most of the D levels are working Sundays on
rotation to help augment our hours, so we have had a consistent effort
to stretch our staff as much as possible. I think it’s always to our
advantage to go back and look again as we move more and more to a more
cost-sensitive library budget….” --Hooker to the trustees at their
September 24, 2003 meeting [Minutes, page 98]
English Translation: “I've been Robbing Peter to Pay Paul practically
from the moment I arrived as Director, and with permanent damage to
our collections and service delivery capability as a result. As a sop
to Trustee McClure's animus against the very idea that some people in
an organization as large as AFPL's are hired to manage employees and
programs rather than interact directly with the public, I've decreed
that some (though not all) of my immediate subordinates work
(occasionally) at branch libraries on Sundays--although of course that
means those managers will be unavailable whenever they take time off
during the week to compensate for those Sunday stints at those branches.
The main thing the trustees should remember, though, when it comes to
my cost-cutting efforts is that all my predecessors were
cost-profligate library directors; it is I and I alone who has lifted
a finger to save the library from obliviously wasting taxpayers’
dollars.”
Howler #102 Posted November 22, 2003
Category: Dept. of Hookerspeak
“…While we are not cutting staff, we are maximizing the ability of
our existing staff to be trained and moved to work with the public. So
we are trying to keep an equilibrium, if you will, and not constantly
booting up the size of our staff. And we have managed to do that over
the past three years, so we are very pleased in that regard [;] and we
have expanded hours as [?] that resulted in a number of other efforts,
so it’s a beginning, but it’s never over. --Hooker to the trustees
at their meeting of September 24, 2003 [Minutes, pages 98-99]
English Translation: We continue to open new branches--and
to re-open branches we closed--with no additional employees, and we’re
doing that by strip-mining the support services of the library system:
i.e., yanking people from their tasks of performing important services
for branch staff and sticking them in the branches-and, incidentally,
training them for their new jobs afterwards rather than beforehand-and
I’m proud of all these unsettling and disastrous transfers resulting
from the board's failure to secure additional staff for an expanding
library system.
Howler #101 Posted November 22, 2003
Category: Dept. of Vigilant Stewardship
“…A simple thing like turning off the PCs before [library employees]
go home will save money because [leaving them on all night]...add[s]
to…[the cost of] utilities, heat, air conditioning, all of that….”
--Hooker to the trustees at their September 24, 2003 meeting,
responding to a trustee's suggestion that library administrators take
a thorough look at how the library could save tax dollars by conserving
energy [Minutes, page 99].
AFPLWATCH Comment:
Wow! Think of the substantial amounts of money Hooker is going to save
by decreeing that staff must turn off their computers every night!
What’s next in her impressive, comprehensive cost-cutting
scheme--single-ply toilet tissue for all staff restrooms?
Howler #100
Posted November 19, 2003:
Dept. of Disingenuous Remarks
"One of the things that we're working on...is...to develop our next
generation of library leaders...." --Mary Kaye Hooker to the
trustees at their September 24, 2003 meeting [Minutes, page 87]
Hooker's concern for "the next generation" of library leaders is
touching, given the fact that she's run off
a whole raft of librarians who would've otherwise been part of
the cadre of this generation's library leaders!
Howler #99 Updated November 5, 2003
Dept. of When-In-Doubt, Just Make-a-Wild-Guess
"We will be have as our speaker [at a donor function in November]
Thomas Cahill who wrote, among other things, How the Irish Saved
Western Civilization, very popular. And I think he has a new one on
how the Greeks saved Western Civilization. I know he is well thought
of." --Mary Kaye Hooker, to the board of trustees at its
September 24, 2003 meeting [Minutes, page 43]
We wish Hooker, who claims to be a librarian, would be a little
more precise about books she claims to be impressed by. Cahill's
latest book, published in October 2003, is entitled Sailing the
Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter--nothing there about them "saving
Western Civilization"; as Hooker had just acknowledged, it was the
Irish who did that!
Howler #98 Posted November 19, 2003
Category: Hooker's Messiah Complex
"We would like to really be considered part of the arts and culture
scene. I don't think we really asserted that role [before I became
director] and when we look back over the programming we have done over
the past year we have had major writers, we have had the symphony, we
have really had a great turnaround in our programming...." --Mary
Kaye Hooker to the board of trustees at the board's September 24, 2003
meeting [Minutes, page 44]
AFPLWATCH Comment:
Yeah, we all just hallucinated those hundreds of symphony concerts,
writers' lectures, film series, and author interviews at the Central
Library that have taken place every year since the building opened in
1980.
Howler #97 Posted September 30, 2003:
On September 26th, the library director abolished the library
system's Duplicating Unit.
In her September 25th memo announcing the obliteration of the
Duplicating Unit--a memo branch staff received via fax on September
30th, the day after the unit's closing--Hooker wrote that “staff will
be assigned to a public service unit,” and that the county's administrative
headquarters would be handling the library system's printing requests.
Hooker did not explain why why this important library support function would
no longer be performed by library personnel, who had made that decision,
or when they made it; and did not mention that the unit's graphic arts
equipment and supplies would be discarded. Although Hooker's memo
described how to submit printing requests to county printing personnel,
it did not specify how long branch library employees could expect the
county to take to respond to their printing requests.
Howler #96
Category: The Great "Cluster" Mirage
"The Cluster system will respond to community needs with a mix of programs,
materials, and staff responsive to the community. The existing models of
staffing and delivery of services are no longer viable in an automated
library model." --Mary Kaye Hooker's June 25, 2000 response to an
employee's grievance
"The branch managers are reluctant to give up their autonomy and work
together as a team." --Mary Kaye Hooker, testimony before a
group grievance committee hearing, August 17, 2000 [Transcript, page 94]
"...There's no one [in the branches] at this time that goes out and
actually knows what those communities need and want." --Mary
Kaye Hooker, testimony before a group grievance committee hearing,
August 17, 2000 [Transcript, page 97]
From the transcript [page 94] of the August 17, 2000 group
grievance hearing:
[Question from grievance committee member] "How long do you see it taking
before this [reorganization of the library into "clusters"] sort of
works itself through?"
Mary Kaye Hooker: "I anticipate six months. It should go much faster than
that because we now have an assistant director--excuse me, deputy director--
who will be charged with carrying this out. And that will be a primary
area of responsibility. And that level of implementation would be
quite key."
Howler #95
Category: Hooker's Cluelessness about Library Operations
From: Mary Kay Hooker [mailto:mhooker@af.public.lib.ga.us]
Sent: Friday, September 26, 2003 11:53 AM
To: allman@af.public.lib.ga.us; allstaff@af.public.lib.ga.us [All AFPL Employees]
Subject: Hope this website is helpful to reference inquiries
Attachment: image.jpg (46.6 KB)
Occasionally I fund sites that you may find helpful. Hope this is one of those.
MKH
AFPLWATCH Comment:
When library employees received this e-mail message and clicked on the attached file, this is what they saw:
Hooker thinks this cartoon is a web site?? And that it will be useful for "reference inquiries"??
Surfing the Internet and annoying employees with cartoons is what the Board pays Hooker
over $100,000 per year to spend her time doing?? (And we thought she
was so busy "strategizing"....)
Howler #94
Category: Dept. of Strategic Oversights
Posted September 22, 2003:
"We'd hoped to have some special studies available for you...our
attempts to maximize the efficiency with...some of the services that
have been in place for a long time but really needed a second look to
make sure we're really getting as much work out of those areas or if
we need to re-deploy staff."--Mary Kaye Hooker to the trustees (Minutes of the Board's July
23, 2003 meeting, page 14)
AFPLWATCH Comment:
Does this mean the administration is finally taking "a second look" at
the level of staffing at the East Point Branch???
Howlers #92 and #93 Posted September 10, 2003:
Branch managers were instructed on August 28th to begin marking as "Rush" their requests
to the Technical Services Division for cataloging donations from their Friends Groups.
AFPLWATCH Comment:
- So that's the kind of thing Hooker means when she says she wants the library
system to function in "a more businesslike manner"?
- So now Friends' donations will get to branches faster than the unprocessed or incorrectly
processed new items selectors have ordered from the library system's vendors?
Mary Kaye Hooker seems to be the only person in the library system unaware that her
strip-mining of the staff in the Technical Services Division has left the system with an insufficient number of
catalogers and other staff to handle the workload expected of them. Slapping a different label on
an arbitrarily-chosen subset of the branches' numerous requests for cataloging and processing
isn't going to magically speed up the productivity of that already-overburdened staff.
* * * * *
Branch managers were also told on August 28th that branch staff were henceforth to take on
the responsibility of reviewing and making final dispositions about formal requests from patrons to
remove items from the library’s collection.
AFPLWATCH Comment:
Safeguarding the "freedom to read" certainly doesn't rate very high among this administration's
priorities. This edict:
- Was announced without explanation, without any accompanying instructions or
guidelines about how to accomplish this task, and without the provision of any mechanism for
reporting these important decisions.
- Radically departs from the previous, ALA-recommended and Board-approved AFPL procedure, which mandates that a systemwide
committee of librarians promptly investigate and fairly adjudicate these protests, and do so in
a manner consistent with the library system's written collection development policy.
- Will inevitably lead to confusion and inconsistency as each branch haphazardly
constructs its own standards of intellectual freedom. The wildly varying degrees of knowledge and
courage--not to mention diplomatic skills--in the three dozen branches will weaken the library
system's defenses against attempts to censor the contents of its colllections.
- Is an open invitation for citizens to file more
lawsuits against the county. Without a systemwide policy in place to
handle objections to items in the library's collections, it's easy to
imagine legal proceedings being instituted, either by a patron infuritated
by the fact that their objection to some particular item got handled
differently than some other patron's objections to another item, or by
a patron angry over the abrupt removal of an item from the library's
collection without due process.
This administration's blithe abandonment of the library's commitment to citizens' freedom to read is a telling, dangerous,
and profoundly sad statement on the complete ineptitude of the current Powers That Be at the
Atlanta-Fulton Public Library, and how far off-course their "leadership" has taken us.
There is no evidence that this radical departure from previous library
policy has been cleared with the Board of Trustees or with the county
government's legal experts.
Howler #91: The Case of the Faltering Filter
Category: Hooker's Cluelessness about Library Operations
From: Mary Kay Hooker [mailto:mhooker@af.public.lib.ga.us]
Sent: Thursday, September 04, 2003 11:48 AM
To: Lamar Veatch Ph. D. [Director of Georgia's Office of Public Library Services]
Cc: dsingleton@state.lib.ga.us; 'Glover, Stephen'; allman@af.public.lib.ga.us; Sylvia Culver; Ann Haimes; Brenda Hunter; Brian Williams; Carolyn Garnes; Doris Jackson; Ed Robinson; Francine Henderson; John Hilinski; Lu Conti; Margaret Roach; Michelle Carnes; Stephen Glover; Susan Earl
Subject: GPLS Filtering - a disaster for AFPL
Importance: High
Lamar:
We were delighted with the opportunity to join GPLS with its filtering
service. Now we are finding the worms in the apple barrel.
Staff is finding that such basic services such as babblefish are
filtered as well as drugstore.com. All of the ASCLS approved web sites
are filtered because they fall into the category of “games.”
The process to unfilter is protracted and uncertain. If we contact the
provider, N2H2 does not let us know if the URL they are unfaltering or
not.
Should we just pick up our basket and retreat to another vendor or is
there a better way to handle our issues. This is a real customer
service issue.
AFPLWATCH Comment:
This e-mail from Hooker wins its place in the spotlight for the proof
it offers that when it comes to the trees vs. the forest debate, Hooker
is among those who can only see the leaves.
Like the USA PATRIOT Act, Internet filtering has been a major public
issue in recent years that has put libraries into the national news.
Public libraries and their supporters fought, all the way to the
Supreme Court, federal attempts to filter Internet access. The debate
has been covered extensively in the professional literature, as well as
in the national press. The Supreme Court ruled months ago that
libraries receiving federal funds can be required to filter the
Internet, since adult patrons retain the right to ask for individual
workstations to be unfiltered for their use.
Yet at AFPL, the constitutional, free-speech aspects of filtering have
never been considered by the director or the Board of Trustees. Several
years before the federal government became involved in the filtering
question, filtering was promoted at AFPL by a single board member who
felt strongly that Internet access should be filtered for all library
users, regardless of age. This point of view was voted into place by a
board that would rather spend its time reviewing candidates for
part-time clerical positions than addressing the major political,
ethical and intellectual freedom issues posed by filtering policies.
With the arrival four years ago of Mrs. Hooker, and her claim to be
sweeping the library forward into the modern era, the expectation might
have been that the library director and the trustees would address this
growing national dispute. Not so. According to a June 2002 Library Journal
article, "AFPL's Internet filtering policy comes from the board, which decided in 1999
to filter children's terminals and, after the 2000 passage of the Children's Internet
Protection Act (CIPA), to filter all usage. Did Hooker have a recommendation? 'I'd have
to look it up,' she says."
Not only has there not been any organization-wide discussion of the legal
implications of filtering, or of the reasons for or implications of
the sudden recent move to a state-wide filter, there have not even been
any instructions to library staff about how to temporarily remove the
filter from individual workstations if a patron asks us to do that--
a procedure which the Supreme Court's ruling stated would avoid any
troubling constitutional problems with filtering the Internet searches
of adult citizens.
Instead we get a hastily-improvised brainstorming session at a
monthly managers' meeting for a list of problems with the state-wide
filter. Even then, Hooker can't get her facts straight:
- Hooker's e-mail message refers to the N2H2 filtering product, even
though it's the SmartFilter product that AFPL has been using
since August 4th, a fact that was reiterated in Hooker's presence at
the managers' meeting that immediately preceded Hooker's e-mail
message to "Lamar."
- Hooker also apparently doesn’t understand the difference between
removing a filter from one computer, and requesting that a site be
permanently unfiltered.
Hooker displays a similar inability to address the larger issues
underlying the USA PATRIOT Act. Public libraries across the country
have been in the forefront of the institutions challenging this law as
it pertains to library patrons' circulation records; on the flip side,
apparently many individual librarians who accept the terms of the Act
have reported suspicious patrons to law enforcement. The library
community as a whole has been debating this law ferociously since it
was enacted almost two years ago...except at AFPL, where it has
only recently bobbed up onto Ms. Hooker’s personal radar screen.
That the leadership of the largest public library in Georgia, and one
of the largest in the South, has not addressed the two issues that
have major political and intellectual ramifications for its entire
community says everything you need to know about the state of things
at the Atlanta-Fulton Public Library. For those who work there,
however, none of this comes as a surprise. At the moment, it’s as much
as AFPL administrators can do to buy a few books now and then, let
alone address concepts like privacy and intellectual freedom. When
your neck is dragging along the ground, it’s hard to look up and see
the broader vista.
Howler #90: Atlanta is Not El Paso (It’s Not Even Norcross or Doraville)
Category: Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics
Ever since she began working at AFPL, Library Director Mary Kaye Hooker has repeatedly
tried to get the the Board and library managers excited about two hobby-horses she imported
along with her to Atlanta from her previous job in Texas: library services to people
who can’t read (or who can’t read very well), and expanding library services to immigrants.
Unfazed by the relative indifference among staff and among trustees to these two particular
issues, Hooker continues to pepper her public comments with literacy and immigration statistics she comes
across. Her favorite fount of statistical wisdom seems to be the Wall Street Journal.
For example, Hooker recently informed the trustees that “one in five children in the U.S.
lives in an immigrant family and one in four low-income children lives in an immigrant family”
[Minutes of the June 25, 2003 meeting of the Board of Trustees, page 20].
While it’s true that some residents of Fulton County cannot read and that some immigrants live
here, it’s also true that--relative to other parts of the country and even relative to other parts of
the metro area--these problems are not as dire as she wants her listeners to believe. They are
certainly not the most important statistics the staff or the Board of Atlanta's library system
should be worrying about.
Yes, more immigrants are settling in the Atlanta area, especially compared to the rate they
were arriving at ten years ago. And, yes, Hispanics--which is usually who Hooker is talking
about when she mentions immigrants--are the fastest-growing component of the U.S. population.
Neither of these factoids was exactly a secret discovered recently by Mary Kaye Hooker. On
the other hand, consider these figures Hooker did not mention to the Board on June 25th:
- According to the Federation for American Immigration Reform’s web page,
the 2000 Census recorded 78,619 foreign-born residents in the Fulton County. Not only was
immigration "the smallest source of population change" in Fulton County, but it amounted to
only 9.6% of the county's population:
- According to the Georgia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce’s web page
"the largest numbers of Hispanics, 64,137 people, reside in Gwinnett County.
Dekalb County has 52,542 Hispanics; Fulton County holds 48,056, and Cobb County is close
behind with 46,964."
- According to a recent article entitled "Suburbs Become Immigrant
Magnet" in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "data released this month
show that of the nearly 163,000 immigrants who moved into metro Atlanta
from 1995 to 2000, only about 10 percent moved into the city itself.
The other 90 percent--more than 147,000 immigrants--moved into its
surrounding counties."
Hooker uses the immigration bugaboo--like she uses the literacy bandwagon--as part of
her considerable arsenal of tangential issues to disorient her listeners with. Barraging the staff
or the Board with statistics on these two issues without providing context about how the
numbers apply locally is certainly one way of trying to distract others from the most urgent
real problems facing the library system:
- the dismal level of basic library services Fulton County currently provides to literate, native
citizens after four years of Hooker's "leadership."
- Hooker's role in decimating the library system's management personnel, which has led
to unprecedented levels of inefficiency and turmoil in the organization, which has led to an
unprecedented decline in the quality of service to library users.
- Hooker's role in destroying the library system's infrastructure (the network of support
services needed by staff trying to deliver materials to library users).
- Hooker's role in a continuing pattern of race discrimination in library personnel decisions,
despite Hooker's losing an expensive federal lawsuit last year on this very issue.
- Hooker's lack of credibility and respect--handicaps that have led to Hooker's complete
inability to inspire anyone inside or outside the organization to work together to extricate Atlanta's
library system from its notorious mediocrity and head towards anything remotely resembling
excellence.
Memo to Hooker: You might annoy fewer employees and Board members if
you would stop posing as the only person in the organization who scans the Wall Street Journal....
Howler #89
Category: Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics
"16,000 people a month use our [Central Library's] fourth floor
[computers]....Everyone up there is very, very serious. These are
people who are using our databases trying to find a job, using that
tremendous range of services that we have." --Mary Kaye Hooker [Minutes of the
Board of Trustees' July 23, 2003 meeting, page 13]
Jeepers! Unless Hooker's exaggerating again, this means another
198,000 people per year using AFPL's Central Library--and that's just
the folks using the computers there! And using them gravely instead
of frivolously, too! That Central Library sure is a busy place to be
so understaffed....
Howler #88
Category: MKH's "That's Not My Responsibility..." Mantra
"Roswell Branch has been at 50% functional level for its air conditioning for over
two months. Since I only learned of the problem today...." --Mary Kaye Hooker
["Highlights of Monthly Activities: July-August 2003," page 2]
This is the CEO who's claiming to run the library system in "a more
businesslike manner"? Is there any other CEO on the planet who would
remain unaware for over two months of something going wrong in
one of its organization's largest and busiest facilities? Any other
CEO out there who is this unconcerned about the comfort of its
organization's customers (not to mention its employees)? Any other CEO
who's as ineffective in getting something done quickly about
malfunctioning air conditioning in the middle of the summer?
Howler #87
Category: MKH's Messiah Complex
"So we're beginning to make people think about the library as a place
that you can get things done and as an agency that does great things."
--Mary Kaye Hooker to the Board of Trustees at the Board's May 28, 2003 meeting
Howler #86
Category: MKH's "Salvation Through Technology" Fantasies
"I have to tell you that we really moved light-years in the last three
years, from no Internet, a very, very rough Internet, and [to a point]
when we're talking about things like satellite downloads and uplinks
and where we're going next." --Mary Kaye Hooker to the Board of Trustees at the Board's
May 28, 2003 meeting [Minutes, page 31]
Howler #85
Category: Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics
"When we...shut down [the] Central Library for five of six months we did see about
500,000 customers. So I think we are probably the most viable business in downtown
Atlanta...[and] that is great." --Mary Kaye Hooker to the Board of Trustees at the
Board's June 25, 2003 meeting [Minutes, page 20]
AFPLWATCH Comments:
- Hooker has apparently forgotten what actually happened. Earlier
this year, the Central Library's collections were temporarily
off-limits to staff and to the public because a safety inspector had
declared the library's bookshelves on certain floors to be unstable.
The building was never "shut down"--but if it had been, what would
it say about our security if 500,000 people could weasle their way
into a closed public building???
- How could anyone consider 500,000 disappointed library patrons
as "great"?
- Central's collections were inaccessible for three months,
not "five or six months." A three-month denial of public and staff
access to the library system's largest collection was bad enough
without Hooker exaggerating how long it went on!
- As usual, Hooker cites no source for the 500,000 visitors she
claims "we" "saw" at Central during this period. (Who saw these people?
Where did we see them: inside the building? passing by outside on the
sidewalk? Did staff actually provide SERVICE to 500,000 people?)
- Even taking Hooker at her (unsubtantiated) word, the figure of
500,000 visitors is absurd. Do the math: 500,000 divided by three months
divided by the number of hours Central is open per month. The
resulting average number of visitors per hour does not even approach
the number of visitors to Central staff there see coming
into the library, even when Central's collections are accessible.
Doesn't Hooker realize that if she claims 500,000 patrons streamed
through Central's doors by the end of March, she's predicting that
approximately 2,000,000 people will visit the Central Library
this year?
- Memo to the manager of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel: You might as well
close down your Peachtree Street location, as it is clearly among the
doomed "non-viable" downtown businesses. (On second thought, you might
improve your customer traffic by removing your beds for three months
and seeing if you can't imcrease your occupancy statistics as much as
Hooker claims the Central Library did by restricting customer access
to its collections....)
Is there anything this woman won't say to make it seem to her employers
that she is God's gift to public libraries? And which is worse: the
outlandish claims Hooker makes to the library's trustees, or the fact
that not one of seventeen trustees bothers to publicly challenge
Hooker's statements no matter how unsupportable or self-serving they
are?
Howler #84
Category: Hooker's Messiah Complex
"As a member [of the Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce's Education
Council], I have learned that the Chamber (and its leadership) is
unaware of the significant role this Library plays in the education of
our youth. I will be meeting with this Council and related entities to
bring them up to date with our role in the Atlanta and Fulton County
schools." --Mary Kaye Hooker to the Library Board of Trustees, in her
"Highlights of Monthly Activities, June-July 2003," page 5
Apparently Hooker feels she will be (single-handedly!) revolutionizing
the Chamber of Commerce's vision of local education?
Howler #83
Category: Hooker's Messiah Complex
"As Library Director, I am able to encourage small businesses to contact Fulton County as
potential vendors." --Mary Kaye Hooker to the Board of Trustees, in her "Highlights of Monthly Activities,
June-July 2003," p. 5
Wow! After several years now as the county's "Director of Libraries" Hooker's finally
discovers that small businesses can sell their products to the county government!
Howler #82
Category: Hooker's General Cluelessness
"In today's Atlanta Journal-Constitution there was an editorial that
you might have read that talked about the U.S. Patriot Act and the
free speech issues that are involved with that. And they mentioned
libraries and bookstores as being particularly impacted by this
legislation." --Mary Kaye Hooker, Minutes of the April 23, 2003
meeting of the Library Board of Trustees, page 12
President Bush signed the USA PATRIOT Act into law on October 26, 2001,
and librarians have been sounding the alarm about its intrusions into libraries both
long before and ever since the bill was signed. And Hooker's plan for dealing with her
breathtakingly belated discovery of the USA PATRIOT Act is....???
Howler #81
Category: Hooker's Cluelessness about Library Operations
In a discussion of Fulton County's mandate that the library make efforts
to seek out a "more diverse" pool of book vendors [Minutes of the Board of
Trustees' April 23, 2003 meeting, page 17], MKH excitedly reported
to the Trustees:
"We may have found one vendor that is a small vendor, male/female,
small business owner, to help participate in our book bid."
Reassuring, isn't it, that Hooker has managed to discover the world's first known
hermophrodite book vendor?
Howler #80
Category: Hooker's Cluelessness about Library Operations
"Agencies can keep donated books and add them to the data base
when the books/items meet certain minimum standards. These standards are met
by 75-85% of the books that branches receive. The others are shipped to Central
for detailed cataloging and returned within 10 working days." --Hooker
in a memo dated April 10, 2002 to Larry Curry, Friends of the Alpharetta Branch Library
Howler #79
Category: Hooker's "Airy Persiflage" for Board Consumption
"There's a tremendous amount going on. We are very much engaged.
This is not an old-fashioned library or what some of the...Board
members may have seen a couple of years ago. We are now almost at
warp-speed...." --Mary Kaye Hooker (Minutes of the Board of Trustees'
April 23, 2003 meeting, page 11)
Howler #78
Category: Hooker's "Airy Persiflage" for Board Consumption
"We've had two [fund-raising] luncheons with almost twenty-eight new
contacts made as a result. And all of the attendees were very, very
pleased and excited to see what they consider a new library....Very,
very positively received."--Mary Kaye Hooker (Minutes of the Board of Trustees' April 23, 2003
meeting, page 6)
AFPLWATCH Comment:
- How many is "almost" 28 new contacts???
- Are these the same luncheons conducted by the recently-disappeared
Development Officer? Where does his recent abrupt departure leave AFPL's
fund-raising efforts?
- Any predictions from Fraulein Director on when we can we expect to
see actual grants rolling in as a result of these fancy luncheons?
Howler #77
Category: Hooker's Cluelessness about Library Operations
"We have over two million items [in AFPL's collections]. But are
they either the wrong items but our staff isn't selecting appropriately?
And we're watching that already. We have a lot of controls in place
thanks to our Collection Development Officer." --Mary Kaye Hooker (Minutes of
the Board of Trustees' April 23, 2003 meeting, page 15)
AFPLWATCH Comment:
- And what controls might those be?
- Where is the evidence that librarians are not
selecting appropriately? If Hooker's talking--as she so often does--
about circulation, any librarian (except perhaps MKH) knows that
whether or not an item circulates frequently is only one of many
factors indicative of "appropriate" selection. (Nothing at the Auburn
Avenue Research Library circulates. Does that mean that it's full of
worthless stuff? Gosh, to think of all that money we pour into Auburn
every year....)
Howler #76
Category: Hooker's "Airy Persiflage" for Board Consumption
"We've brought in a whole new management team, and that's what's making the
difference." --Mary Kaye Hooker, Atlanta Journal-Constitution,
May 10, 2003
AFPLWATCH Comment:
|
Library Administrative Team
September 2002
(end of previous ordering season) |
| Director |
Mary Kaye Hooker |
| Deputy Director |
Carolyn Garnes |
| Assistant Director for Technology |
(Vacant) |
| Branch Group Manager |
Anne Haimes |
| Branch Group Manager |
Lu Conti (Acting) |
| Central Library Administrator |
Susan Earl |
| Finance Officer |
Ed Robinson |
| Collection Development Librarian |
Brenda Hunter |
|
Library Administrative Team
May 10, 2003
(date of Hooker's pronouncement) |
| Director |
Mary Kaye Hooker |
| Deputy Director |
Carolyn Garnes |
| Assistant Director for Technology |
(Vacant) |
| Branch Group Manager |
Anne Haimes |
| Branch Group Manager |
Lu Conti (Acting) |
| Central Library Administrator |
Susan Earl |
| Finance Officer |
Ed Robinson |
| Collection Development Librarian |
Brenda Hunter |
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