ATTACHMENT A TO EEOC CHARGE OF MARY KAYE HOOKER
I hold the position of the Director of Libraries at the Atlanta-Fulton Public Library System. Throughout my tenure I have been the victim of a systematic campaign of race discrimination, retaliation, and harassment by the Board of Trustees and other officials of the Library System.

Well, the first sentence is true. That may be the last assertion in this document that is. Let’s read along and see what evidence Ms. Hooker will offer of this “systematic campaign.”

I was hired as the Director of Libraries in August 1999. I was expected to carry out the orders of the Board of Trustees (the governing body) and supervise staff activities. The Library’s Board of Trustees initially mandated that I reorganize staff and personnel. During a December 1999 Board of Trustees meeting, William McClure, then Chair of the Board, said we had to reorganize staff because “we have too many old white women” at the central library.

To whom did you report Mr. McClure’s shocking statement, Ms. Hooker? Let us quote from some notes made during the discrimination lawsuit in January 2002 by one of those in attendance at the trial:

Question to Ms. Hooker: “Have you ever heard a board member comment on assigning people on the basis of race?”

Answer: “Never.”

The Board of Trustees ordered me to re-organize library personnel in March 2000. I transferred 28 library employees throughout the library system. At the suggestion of Board Chair McClure, the Board promoted Carolyn Garnes to the position of Deputy Director of Libraries in May 2000. Shortly after Garnes’ promotion, McClure said “we’ve got to get rid of Mary Kaye Hooker” in the presence to two other Board members. After Garnes was hired, the Board removed my authority to deal with personnel issues by adopting an organizational chart that left me with authority over personnel decisions in name only. Mrs. Garnes took sole responsibility for nearly all personnel decisions affecting library staff.

Notice how quickly Ms. Hooker here glosses over that “re-organization.” In the previous paragraph, she established that the motivation behind it was “too many old white women.” Now we read that Ms. Hooker went ahead and carried out those racially motivated transfers. But how careful she is to break these two things into separate paragraphs so the reader doesn't make that connection! How speedily she plunges ahead into smoother waters, to the arrival of her nemesis and scapegoat, Carolyn Garnes.

And how very interesting her description of the promotion of Garnes to Deputy Director! Staff have long believed that Garnes’ rise to the second highest position in the library system was rammed through by McClure and his cronies; more than just the five candidates for the job will remember the peculiarities of the hiring, including the way the final interviews were scheduled so quickly that not all the finalists could make them. It sounds to us like this might be a good time for one of those candidates who are still angry at what happened to go back now and turn over a few rocks, and open up some inquiries into that hiring.

The third interesting thing in this paragraph is Ms. Hooker’s description of “an organizational chart” that left her with “name only” authority for personnel. How does that square with Ms. Hooker’s testimony in the federal lawsuit - under persistent questioning on the issue - that there was no organizational chart at all? But of course the crucial thing for Ms. Hooker, is to establish that it was Garnes who was responsible for everything. Too bad Garnes wasn’t hired as Deputy till 3 months after those illegal transfers, but we're sure if Ms. Hooker thinks about it, she can find some way of making Garnes responsible for those too.

Garnes systematically favored African American employees and employee candidates over Caucasians, often disregarding the individual’s qualifications. Garnes routinely hired African American candidates over Caucasian candidates, even when the Caucasian candidates were more qualified for the position. Garnes regularly gave lower evaluations to Caucasian employees and higher evaluations to African American employees. When these actions came to my attention, I asked Garnes to reconsider her decisions, informing her that these decisions were discriminatory and illegal. Garnes ignored my protests. I also complained about Garnes’ discrimination to the Library’s Board of Trustees, which supported Garnes’ decisions. Finally, I complained about Garnes’ race discrimination to the Fulton County Government Equal Employment Opportunity Office. That office refused to conduct a review of my complaints, calling them “internal management issue[s].” Please see the attached exhibits.

Unfortunately the “attached exhibits” were not supplied as a result of our Open Records Act request. We’d like to know if they answer a few questions, like: What examples does Hooker offer of Garnes’ favoritism in hiring and evaluations? What exactly did Hooker's first complaint to the EEO consist of?

We’re not denying that Garnes also discriminated and played favorites - the staff itself can give plenty of evidence of that. We’d like to know what evidence Hooker herself had, and what she did with it, and when.

Hooker “asked Garnes to reconsider her decisions, informing her that these decisions were discriminatory and illegal.” Wasn’t Hooker Garnes’ supervisor? Wasn’t Hooker the Director? Why would Hooker “ask” Garnes to “reconsider” decisions she acknowledges were “illegal”? We’ve never noticed that Ms. Hooker has had any problems lowering the boom on library employees. From descriptions we’ve heard, she lowered it on Ms. Garnes loudly and with fireworks on several occasions. Why then, on this incredibly important topic, did she just “ask” Garnes to “reconsider”? Why didn't she haul Ms. Garnes’ butt down to the EEO office with all this evidence of Garnes’ illegal actions? If Ms. Hooker had bothered to attend all the EEO and personnel training that she required other staff to sit through (repeatedly!), she’d know that as the person in charge she is responsible for any discrimination that she is made aware of and takes no steps to stop. It seems like a tactical error, then, for Hooker to acknowledge here that she knew illegal acts were happening.

In June 2000, several Caucasian library employees filed suit against the Atlanta-Fulton Public Library System, alleging race discrimination. Deputy Director Garnes, often with the Board of Trustees’ support, retaliated against the litigants and their favorable witnesses. For example, Garnes interviewed a Caucasian litigant, Mary Starck for a promotion in early 2003. Although Ms. Starck was the highest-scoring and most qualified applicant, she was not offered the position. The second-highest scoring candidate, also a Caucasian, was not awarded the position either. The position was eventually awarded to the third-highest scoring candidate, an African American, by Garnes and the Board of Trustees. Ms. Starck was also refused a lateral transfer to the South Fulton Library Branch. During the litigation, Board members stated that they “were not going to transfer litigants” and would not transfer individuals that agreed to be witnesses for the litigants.

Notice how Hooker fast forwards from 2000 to 2003?

If Garnes’ discriminatory practices were so flagrant, why isn't Hooker able to list a few that took place during those years, and that didn’t involve plaintiffs?

Notice also how the sole evidence Hooker offers of Garnes’ discrimination and retaliation is the case of plaintiff Starck, obviously drawn from Starck’s complaint, already on the record. Using only incidents that are already public knowledge is a good tactic. If Hooker referred to other incidents, ones that weren’t already public knowledge, she would run the risk of possibly revealing her own knowledge and involvement in those other incidents of discrimination.

Good try, Ms. Hooker, but your signature is always on the personnel action recommendations that go (or used to go to) to the Board. Were you blindfolded when you signed the ones that involved the plaintiffs, or whatever other ones through which Garnes “retaliated against the litigants and their favorable witnesses”? But extra points to Ms Hooker for her balls in using the lawsuit as a springboard for attacking Garnes. Perhaps Hooker hoped that since she filed this document with the federal EEO rather than Fulton County’s, the feds might not realize that Hooker herself was a defendant in this lawsuit?

I attempted to bring Deputy Director Garnes’ discriminatory and retaliatory actions to the attention of virtually anyone within the library system who would listen. I attempted to terminate Garnes’ employment in early 2003, after gathering substantial evidence of her illegal discrimination and retaliation. The Board of Trustees then retaliated against me by revoking my authority to terminate employees. Board members announced in a personnel committee meeting that I no longer held even the name-only authority to hire, discipline or terminate. I then brought the evidence I had gathered to the Fulton County Equal Opportunity office, which finally agreed to investigate Garnes’ retaliation. The Office ruled that Garnes had retaliated against a Caucasian litigant. Please see the attached exhibits.

Could you tell us, Ms. Hooker, to exactly whose attention you “attempted” to bring these discriminatory and illegal actions? Your vast secretarial pool? The cleaning crew? Did you call the Fulton County Attorney’s office to let them know that grounds for lawsuit #2 were in the making? Did you go to the county commissioners? The press? How about the plaintiffs’ attorneys? Or a call to the other employees who were on the receiving end of these actions by Garnes, to advise them to file grievances or EEO complaints that you would support?

As to the Board's revoking your authority to terminate employees, didn’t you just tell us three paragraphs ago that you had no authority over personnel decisions?

As to your claim of bringing evidence to the Fulton County EEO, isn’t it true that you went to the EEO about Garnes only after Mary Starck had already filed her EEO complaint - naming you in the complaint? Oh, and can you point us to the committee minutes in which Board members strip you of your personnel authority? Was this ever brought to the full Board? If it wasn’t, then you weren’t stripped of your authority at all, were you? You were very much in charge all through the time that you’re now trying to claim Ms. Garnes was violating federal law.

When she could no longer conceal her illegal actions, Carolyn Garnes retired on August 15, 2003. After Garnes left, I took over all of the Deputy Director functions, including personnel and staff management duties, in addition to carrying out my responsibilities as Director of Libraries. Though the Board still retains sole authority to hire, discipline or terminate library employees.

Wow, you took over Garnes’ duties in addition to your own! Picture us playing the world’s smallest violin! So all those memos rotating responsibility for all Garnes’ public service duties onto the shoulders of the Branch Group Managers must have been a figment of our imagination! You know, we never met a person making $112,000 who was more averse to actual work than you, Ms. Hooker.

The Board of Trustees recently commissioned a “study” of the Atlanta-Fulton Public Library System’s personnel policies and procedures. The study was conducted from September 2003 (shortly after Garnes’ departure) through December 2003. It is obvious from the report that the Board undertook the “study” for the purpose of discrediting me and finding a convenient scapegoat for the System’s longstanding systemic personnel problems. The report details many problems with the Library’s personnel procedures, but completely conceals the fact that, until a very few weeks before the study commenced, all personnel decisions were made by Deputy Director Garnes. The report falsely assumes that the Director always had full responsibility for personnel decisions, when this was not the case until August 15, 2003. The authors of the study only spoke directly to me once, very early in the investigation, and never gave me an opportunity to rebut their findings. To my knowledge, the person(s) conducting the study neither investigated the actions of, nor even interviewed, members of the Board of Trustees.

Love the way you put “study” in quotes - what, wasn’t it a real study?

As to not getting the opportunity to rebut its findings - no one got that opportunity. The study wasn’t a hearing. It was a review of the staff’s opinion of the climate at the library. And though what people told the EEO auditors was confidential, we all know exactly how involved you are in the transfers, the retaliation, the abuse, the threats, and the discrimination.

As for your claim about scapegoating - it would be nice if Ms. Garnes, Ms. Earl, and others who have moved on, would get fed up with your laying all the blame on them, and would answer your accusations. Hey - maybe if you file a lawsuit, they’ll get that opportunity!

Ever since I began complaining about race discrimination, Board members have retaliated by pressuring me to resign. The Board-commissioned study, and its distorted results are another attempt to intimidate others and retaliate against me. Emma Darnell, member of the Board of Trustees and Fulton County Commissioner has threatened my job. The Board has also instituted a retaliatory investigation against me based upon an anonymous letter, but refuses to give me a copy of the investigation, in violation of the Open Records Act.

More recently, Board members have made statements to the media insinuating that I am guilty of the very illegal actions I’ve complained about. In the February 5, 2004 issue of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper, Fulton County Commission Chairwoman Karen Handel stated “There is no question we need a change in leadership there,” regarding the library. Robert Fulton, member of the Board of Trustees and Fulton County Commissioner told me that I should begin looking for a new job. By contrast, the Board refuses to allow me to speak to the press or write a letter in my own defense.

Hello! Earth to Hooker! No need for Board members to insinuate! A federal jury found you “guilty of the very illegal actions I’ve complained about.” Any time an executive costs an organization $18,000,000, calls for that executive’s resignation aren’t retaliation, they’re common sense!

Board members retaliated against me for complaining of, and refusing to participate in, the existing discriminatory and retaliatory employment scheme. The Board has created such a hostile and retaliatory environment that it has interfered with my ability to perform my job properly. I am threatened frequently, both directly and indirectly, with termination from Board members and others. I fear that the Board will use the recent study to blame me for many of Deputy Director Garnes’ discriminatory and retaliatory actions, and use this as pretext for my eventual termination.

Please let us see the evidence of the times you refused to participate in discrimination and retaliation. Again, we refer you back to those personnel recommendations signed by you. That makes you responsible for those personnel decisions, Ms. Hooker.

For those who haven't already seen it, here's the text of Senate Bill 231, as passed by the Georgia Legislature earlier this month.

“…certainly there is some hostility in certain portions of the workforce….I think that certainly the individuals who have the AFPL[WATCH] web site…are clearly angry. But…I don’t think they are all angry. I think some of them probably don’t have enough high morale to be angry. But there certainly is a segment of them who are angry….That’s a fact.”

• We are angry that the board allowed the racist attitudes and agenda of a few of its members to polarize the board and to contaminate the operations of the library--including the management and deployment of the library's personnel.
  
  
• We’re angry because the board ran off Julie Hunter--one of the best library directors any library system could ever hope for--by refusing to acknowledge Hunter's copiously documented complaints that the board's micromanagement had crippled her ability to manage the library system.
  
  
• We're angry because the board then turned around and, despite her alarming record in El Paso, hired Mary Kaye Hooker to replace Julie Hunter.
  
  
• We’re angry because, in its bone-headed incompetence, the board stubbornly ignored an ever-growing mountain of evidence that Hooker was herself incompetent to lead the library anywhere except to a desert of her own making.
  
  
• We’re angry because the board allowed a single board member, William McClure, to orchestrate the hiring of his friend Carolyn Garnes as the library's deputy director rather than insisting that one of the other, better-qualified candidates be hired for that crucial post.
  
  
• We’re angry at Hooker's, Garnes', and the board's (particularly McClure's) contempt for the county's merit system in their handling of library personnel matters. We object to Hooker, Garnes, and McClure regarding themselves not as administrators accountable to sound management practices and to county personnel procedures but as overseers of some sort of private plantation to run as they see fit. (And, silly us, we thought everybody in this country knew that the plantation model of getting work done had long ago been discredited.)
  
  We're angry because Hooker and Garnes regarded library promotions, training opportunities, and committee appointments as sops for their favorites instead of opportunities for the advancement of qualified, experienced employees to more responsible posts. We're angry that so many unqualified and incompetent Garnes appointees and Hooker appointees are still in leadership posts at the library.
  
  
• We’re angry because Hooker and McClure drove out of the organization numerous seasoned library managers, including the Assistant Director for Finance, the Assistant Director for Public Services, the Assistant Director for Technology, and the Public Information Officer. These seasoned administrators could have helped wisely and smoothly guide the library through the many challenges of the past few years--the adoption of graphical Internet connections, the migration to contract-based purchasing, the issue of whether or not to filter library Internet terminals, the shift from print-based reference resources to electronic ones, the migration to different circulation software, etc. The vacuum left by the premature departures of these managers transformed those challenges into ordeals an ill-led and poorly-supported library staff have had to cope with in a chaotic, frustrating atmosphere.
  
  
• We’re angry because Hooker and Garnes destroyed the careers of some of the library system’s best and brightest mid-level managers by exiling them to positions with far less responsibility and diminished opportunities for directly contributing to or positively influencing the future of the organization--especially through their aborted mentoring of other, less seasoned employees. We’re also angry because Hooker and Garnes then went on to fill their artifically-created management vacancies with people who were clearly less qualified than the exiles.
  
  
• We’re angry because Hooker and Garnes are personally responsible for so many unnecessary, hardship-producing involuntary personnel transfers, and for denying promotions to so many well-qualified individuals. We're angry because people whose careers were stymied, derailed, or ended by Hooker's or Garnes' transfers had to go on hearing about Hooker and Garnes disingenuously braying about the "critical need for career paths” for AFPL employees.
  
  
• We're angry because Hooker and Garnes involuntarily transferred into public service posts so many people who were not experienced in serving the public, who were not trained to do that, and who were not interested in doing that--a series of transfers resulting in so many more customers getting poor service and in so many unhappy library employees.
  
  
• We’re angry that so many of our most dedicated, most creative, and most able colleagues no longer work with us, having left the organization --or been pushed out of it--because they couldn’t bear working under Hooker or Garnes or with the board’s micromanagement any longer.
  
  
• We're angry because one of our co-workers was brutally murdered by a library employee after library administrators failed to respond adequately to the murdered manager's previous and repeated appeals over several years for help in managing the employee who killed her.
  
  
• We are angry because library employees had to resort to filing lawsuits to stop the board and Hooker from completely carrying out their race-based “reorganization” plan. We're angry because of the misery and anxiety brought into the lives of the dozens of people targeted for the part of the reorganization Hooker & Co. were able to implement before the first federal lawsuit interrupted their grand scheme; because of the misery and anxiety brought into the lives of the librarians courageous enough to file those lawsuits; and because of the retaliation some of those librarians also later encountered--and are still enduring--from the losers of those lawsuits.
  
  
• We're angry that the board's and Hooker's ill-conceived and illegal "reorganization" not only wiped out most of the library's institutional memory, but effectively obliterated what would have been the next cohort of leaders for the Atlanta-Fulton Public Library.
  
  
• We’re angry because we have a board of trustees who hasn’t raised a dime from private donors to improve the library's collections or expand its services, despite the fact that appropriations for the library's operations have remained flat for many years.
  
  
• We’re angry because we have a library board whose members consistently fail to to ask probing questions about the "information" the director feeds the board, whose members consistently fail to discuss and debate the director’s so-called "initiatives," some of which are clearly tangential to the primary mission of a public library (getting into the hands of the county's citizens the materials those citizens want or need).
  
  
• We’re angry because the board refuses to face the fact that, over and over again, it has stretched the library's limited number of employees into staffing more and more libraries with constantly-expanding hours of operation. We're angry that, faced with the fact that the county's latest hiring freeze has resulted in over 50 vacant positions, the board has not temporarily or permanently closed any branches and/or reduced the operating hours of any branch library.
  
  
• We’re angry because the board and Hooker deliberately destroyed the library system's technical services support function by transferring the majority of tech services employees to branch libraries rather than securing additional positions for branch libraries.
  
  
• We’re angry because the board mandated filtering for the library's Internet terminals before thoroughly and publicly discussing the advantages and disadvantages of Internet filtering--and long before federal law required filtering for libraries who wanted to continue obtaining federal funds. We're angry because the filter chosen for the library blocks access to information our adult customers are entitled to read, and nobody is doing anything about that.
  
  
• We’re angry because the board has not insisted that the director hire an Electronic Resources Manager, a Circulation Manager, a Technical Services Manager, a Collection Development Manager and other administrators absolutely essential to the smooth functioning of a library system as large as AFPL’s-and that the board allowed Hooker to "temporarily" appoint to these long-vacant positions people without the qualifications or the knowledge required for making the expensive and far-reaching recommendations and decisions these administrators must make.
  
  
• We're angry because the board continues to employ a director who is unable to provide a coherent vision of library service that could motivate library managers and employees who are trying, under ludicrously stressful conditions and despite the looniness of its director, to keep afloat a $32 million-a-year county department. We're angry because of the extra effort required to cope with the library director's relentless stream of ephemeral, superficial folies du jour that she and the board regard as "exciting new initiatives."
  
  
• We're angry at the extent to which Hooker's incompetence and narcissism has so has thoroughly demoralized the library's employees and stifled so much creativity and talent in the library's workforce.
  
  
• We're angry that the library the board and Hooker preside over and feel so good about what is mostly an imaginary library, a mirage crafted by Hooker by dovetailing her own incompetence, amnesia, and grandiosity with the amnesia, grandiosity, and ignorance of most board members. We're angry at the board's cheerful swallowing of Hooker's unsubstantiated and overblown claims about the alleged progress and improvements she's making while the actual library system in Fulton County--the library system where over three hundred souls work, day in and day out, and the library system that library customers find ever more frustrating to use--rots from within as a result of the anything-but-benign neglect of its incompetent director and it's too-eager-to-hear-how-wonderful-everything-is board of trustees.
  
  
• We're angry that Hooker has gutted the once-admired, carefully-crafted collections of the Central Library; that Hooker has squandered the invaluable subject expertise of Central Library librarians by transferring these once-relied-upon specialists to branch libraries; that Hooker and Garnes replaced the Central Library's most able and experienced managers with individuals with less experience and fewer abilities; and that Hooker's repeated raids on the Central Library's personnel resources have steadily downgraded the function of AFPL's Central Library to that of a regional branch.
  
  
• We’re angry because in June 2002, after a federal court found Mary Kaye Hooker and William McClure guilty of race discrimination, the board of trustees refused to terminate Hooker and remove McClure from the board. We are angry because they refused to do this in January 2004, after an appeals court upheld the previous verdicts and declared that Hooker and McClure not only willfully and illegally victimized library employees but tried to cover up their plans to do just that. We are angry because the county attorney wasted another six months of library employees' time and thousands more taxpayers' dollars appealing the affirmed guilty verdicts to the U.S. Supreme Court. We’re angry because when in June 2004 the county abruptly decided to settle the case out of court at a cost to the county’s taxpayers of $16,800,000, the board still refused to terminate Hooker and remove McClure. We’re angry because when Hooker--with the board’s approval--retaliated against two of the plaintiffs in that lawsuit, and the county settled that case out of court at a cost to the county’s taxpayers of an additional $250,000, the board again failed to terminate Hooker. We’re angry that after a consultant the board hired at a cost to the taxpayers of $112,000 reported to the board that Hooker was woefully inadequate as a library manager, the board again refused to terminate Hooker, and instead concocted a completely inappropriate and unrealistic scheme to “sensitize” Hooker and otherwise re-train her for her duties.
  
  
• We’re angry that every time Hooker’s incompetence has been exposed, the board permits Hooker to send the library’s managers off to yet another round of mandatory management training classes or EEO classes despite the fact that it is not those managers who have been shown to be incompetent and it is not those managers who have failed to comply with EEO regulations.
  
  
• We’re angry because the “professional” manager of the library’s Human Resource Department, hired by Hooker, personally witnessed but stood idly by as Hooker verbally abused employees who fell out of favor with her; who personally witnessed Hooker lying to county grievance panels but who said nothing; and who did nothing when Hooker authorized personnel transactions that were clearly illegal.
  
  
• We’re angry because we’re sick of hearing Hooker yammer on about developing “output measures” for library managers while the board has steadfastly failed for almost five years to develop, publicize, and enforce any empirical measures of the library director's performance.
  
  
• We’re angry because Hooker and Garnes have obscured and undermined the library’s primary mission by insisting that library “programming” is far more important than building and maintaining library collections. We’re angry because Hooker’s and Garnes’ relentless mandates that library staff concoct and/or publicize and/or conduct or co-conduct such "programs” have siphoned off the energy of already-stretched-to-the-limit branch staffs-time and energy that is no longer available to focus on better collections, to adequately staff library service desks, and to provide competent and sensitive customer service. We’re also angry that after five years of insisting on these time-consuming efforts at “programming,” Hooker and the board continue to disregard the poor attendance at these half-baked programs as evidence of the fact that they are not needed and have in fact demanded or authorized even more programming instead of cutting back on this activity.
  
  
• We're angry because it's going to take so many years and so many millions of dollars to counteract the damage done to the library in the past ten years, and because all of that money and effort could have been so much more productively invested if the library system's efforts had been overseen by a less self-serving, more knowledgeable, more courageous board of trustees.
  
  
• We're angry because, along with the many others who care about quality library service, we're exhausted from three years of begging state legislators to abolish an arrogant, incompetent, micromanaging, in-deep-denial board of trustees and to authorize the county manager to get rid of Mary Kaye Hooker and replace her with someone capable of leading the library in a direction and in a manner that library employees and library users can be proud of.
  
  

• For the county's library system to no longer be held hostage by an incompetent board and its incompetent and abusive director.
  
  
• For a new board and a new director skilful enough to tap into the long-stifled creative energy that lies beneath the blasted morale of a decimated library staff--energy now largely and unavoidably preoccupied with minimizing the damages caused by the current board and its director or in fending off the new threats to sane library operations constantly coming from their direction.
  
  
• An opportunity for the library staff's efforts to be supported and enriched by qualified, competent, mature, and respected supervisors and managers.
  
  
• A realistic, understandable, affordable, inspiring vision of public library service.
  
  

WARNING!

RECENT NEWS THAT THE GEORGIA LEGISLATURE HAS PASSED A BILL
THAT WOULD MOVE MARY KAYE HOOKER'S SUPERVISION TO THE
COUNTY MANAGER HAS CREATED POTENTIALLY HAZARDOUS CONDITIONS.

MRS. HOOKER REPORTEDLY RESORTS TO EXTREME MEASURES
WHEN SHE FEELS HER JOB IS IN JEOPARDY.

CONSULT THE FOLLOWING CHART AS A GUIDE TO THESE
PROGRESSIVELY DESPERATE MANEUVERS:

TO AVOID BEING CAUGHT UP IN ANY OF THESE SCENARIOS,
EMPLOYEES SHOULD TAKE APPROPRIATE PRECAUTIONS:

• TRAVEL IN PAIRS.
  
  
• IF YOU SEE MS. HOOKER NEAR A STAIRCASE,
  TAKE THE ELEVATOR INSTEAD.
  
  
• THOSE OF YOU WHO GREW UP DURING THE COLD WAR,
  DEMONSTRATE “DUCK AND COVER” PROCEDURES
  TO FELLOW EMPLOYEES.
  
  
• STAY ALERT.

I read your latest article concerning Captain Hooker's plan to have GALILEO cataloged. May I suggest something that another library uses to "showcase" its databases?

When I was employed at the Cleveland Public Library, each subject department had its own web page, and my job was to maintain my department's page. These departmental pages consist of staff-selected web sites as well as the research databases to which Cleveland Public Library subscribes.

The link for CPL's "Databases & Links Library" is http://www.cpl.org/LinksLibrary.asp?FormMode=DBNew.

You will notice that Cleveland Public has arranged its Research Databases alphabetically, with a description for each one. You will also notice at the bottom of the page the categories that the databases are divided into. CPL also has a "Links Library," web sites that library staff chose as additional resource information for patrons. Each site link includes descriptions of these web sites.

My question is simple. Couldn't something like this work for Atlanta-Fulton Public Library in organizing its databases? It works wonders for Cleveland Public Library by allowing patrons to access information they need online.

As an AFPL staff member, it's frustrating at times to refer patrons to Google or Yahoo when I know we have, or should have, databases that can give patrons the information they need, but currently our [database list] is so unorganized for patron usage.

"E. Lynn Harris, Jr."

Section 4(a)(1) - The term of office of each member of the library board of trustees serving as such trustee on June 30, 2004, shall expire upon July 1, 2004. On and after July 1, 2004, the library board of trustees shall consist of 11 members [instead of the current 17] as provided in this section....

Section 4(g) - There shall be an executive director of the library system who shall be hired by and serve at the pleasure of the Fulton County manager and shall report directly to the county manager for purposes of job performance, evaluation, and budgeting.

Trustee [and Personnel Committee Chair] John Thomas: "...As the Board will recall, at the February 11th meeting we did adopt certain actions and recommendations as a result of the Elarbee Thompson audit of the Library System. At that time--at that meeting, that same meeting--the Personnel Committee was tasked with the requirement to give a monthly report of our progess on these recommendations....

In the future we will have this report and it will highlight our progress to date. I would like to say that both Ms. Hooker and Ms. Culver have been very, very cooperative and very supportive of this effort. And I think we're making some great progress. So let me just give you a verbal summary at this point of where we stand....

[Ms.Hooker] will receive comprehensive personnel training. And in that regard you will recall in addition to the personnel training she was also directed to undergo management and sensitivity training an a more targeted training on employment law. Now, here's where we stand on this. She is in the process of getting what she believes are the ideal seminars or training. But she will not proceed until she has the full cooperation and recommendation of Fulton County. OK. She is not going to pick these on her own. She is going to go back to Fulton County and with their recommendation she will then proceed with these courses. But she understands the importance and the urgency, so I don't think there is any doubt that that recommendation by the Board will be undertaken.... And I suspect by next meeting, at the latest, Ms. Hooker, you will have--I suspect it is fair to say you will have these programs and dates?..."

Commissioner Darnell: "Have you established a begin and end date for the training classes--"

Thomas: "I have not."

Darnell: "--the seminars?"

Thomas: "Only that-- All I can say is that-- And I'm not even sure what these seminars--what form they'll take, Ms. Darnell. But I can tell you that they will be undertaken in the fullest cooperation with Fulton County. We're not going to be picking these per se. We will pick them, but then we will go back to Fulton County and say this is what it is about, this is what it entails, this is the duration, this is the class. So that's the plan...."

Darnell: "It would be very helpful if we know as soon as that is determined--what the specific classes are, when they begin, and when they end."

Thomas: "That's the plan. We will have that by next month."

Trustee [and Personnel Committee Chair] John Thomas: "...Upper management will initiate regular and open communication with staff concerning issues affecting them. Ms. Hooker meets twice a month with her collective staff, and she meets once a month with each staff--with each director reporting individually. And the intent is that they will--those staff members will--then begin to drive down that communication. So every Rodney and Harry and Henrietta at the bottom will have an understanding of what is going on at the top. But--"

Library Director Mary Kaye Hooker: "Plus there are general staff meetings that I attend. There are probably 20 or 30 other meetings a year that are general in nature that I attend."

Thomas: "Ms. Hooker understands the importance of raising the level of communication. And I think what she has begun to do is getting to that...."

Commissioner Emma Darnell: "...With respect to the communications item that was contained in the [board consultant's] report, if we could have all of the strategies. We need strategies. What strategies are being used to improve upon the communication with the staff? We have heard about staff meetings. When did they begin, when [were] they started, what kinds of topics are being discussed?...I recall, for instance, in the report that the investigator suggested that we might make use of newsletters. You know, there are several kinds of strategies which just for information [the board's Personnel Committee] could share with us...."

Trustee Thomas: "I can't agree more, Ms. Darnell. That is exactly what [the Committee] got into this afternoon. We're both on the same--we want details."

Darnell: "Yes."

Thomas: "We want details. And Ms. Hooker and Ms. Culver understand that. So I suspect that's what you're going to begin to see...."