ALA Member Alert!
Postscript to Recent Garnes Sighting
Posted April 19, 2005
Regular readers of the "LibraryLand"
section of AFPLWATCH will recall that we recently
warned American Library Association members that former AFPL "Depuddy
Dawg" Carolyn Garnes was running for another term on ALA Council.
One of those readers checked out
Garnes' bio on ALA's web site (Garnes' bio is #27). Among other things
(and in language a bit too harsh for posting to AFPLWATCH), our correspondent
noted the irony of Garnes' stated current occupation: "Literacy/Reading
Consultant."
That rather scary claim reminded us of all those Agency Meetings that
Garnes littered with her non-stop malapropisms, and it reminded us too
of the nineteen spelling, grammatical, or typographical errors Garnes
managed to make in a one-paragraph email she once sent to
her colleague Brian Williams before Williams' abrupt departure as AFPL's
Development Director. (Garnes sent copies of the message to others, which
is how AFPLWATCH eventually got one. Read the email.)
Moving right along through Garnes' ALA bio, one comes upon Garnes' comment
about the importance of mentoring other librarians. Our correspondent's
(slightly edited) comment:
Garnes did her best while at AFPL to promote her protégés, that’s
for sure, but at the expense of anyone who did not share the
characteristics of her favored demographic target group. "Selective
Mentoring" is what Garnes really values, which the rest of the world
defines as favoritism, nepotism, & cronyism - or just plain old
corruption. The end result: the formation at AFPL of what was known as
the "East Point Mafia," an unbroken line of incompetence, malfeasance,
and unethical behavior that made AFPL what we are today. Let us pray
this delusional woman, who has caused enough havoc and heartache for
one lifetime in librarianship, is not re-elected.
AFPLWATCH readers who are also members of ALA can do more than pray: they
can vote for some of the 90 candidates other than Carolyn Garnes who are
running for ALA Council. But voters will have to move quickly: the
deadline for voting is April 22nd.
Size, Turnover Statistics Point to Same Conclusion:
Staff Allocations Are Woefully Out of Whack at AFPL
Posted April 18, 2005
Another two sets of statistics released last week that measure relative
workloads handled by various AFPL libraries show the same thing that
virtually every other set of statistics measuring library productivity
reveals: that the number of staff allocated to AFPL's libraries are not
aligned with the amount of work currently handled by those libraries.
That fact has long been reflected in the library system's circulation
statistics, as we reported earlier this month.
Recently-released data showing the current
sizes of AFPL's various collections support the same conclusion, as do
computations of the current turnover rates
of AFPL's libraries for March 2005.
No matter what output measure is used, the same dozen or so branches keep
showing up at the top of whatever rankings are being looked at. There's a
similar pattern for the branches showing up at the bottom of whatever data chart
one looks at. Our hunch is that the only exception would be the
ranking of AFPL branches by how many employees work where.
Current headcounts of staff allocated to each AFPL facility have not been
distributed recently, and it's no wonder they haven't been, as we're certain
they would show that library staffing patterns - determined not by the
library director but by the library's previous board of trustees
approximately five years ago - are glaringly unfair. Managers and
front-line employees are fully aware that current staff allocations
don't come anywhere near to reflecting which libary facilities shoulder
the heaviest - and the lightest - workloads. And that these imbalances
have prevailed for several years now.
We hope AFPL's new director will find someone - or a group of seasoned and
savvy someones - to examine the workload statistics being generated every
month and make some recommendations to the director for putting staff
resources where they are most clearly needed. And we hope that the new
director will do that soon, as the out-of-whack staff allocations are
not "merely" a staff morale issue but a fundamental customer service issue.
AFPL in the News Again
Posted April 14, 2005; update posted April 20, 2005
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution wasted little time in publishing an
article about John Szabo's arrival earlier this month as AFPL's new director.
The story emphasizes the tentative hopes many library employees feel about
the prospect of Szabo being able to lead the library system out of the
wilderness that it's been wandering around in for the past five-plus years.
Read the AJC story.
Update: On April 19th, Library Journal
posted a brief
announcement of Szabo's arrival at AFPL on its web site.
Editorial
Posted April 7, 2005
Hello, Szabo!
"All beginnings are delightful, the threshold is the place to pause." - Goethe
Goethe would've been more accurate had he written that most
beginnings are delightful. In the context of Fulton County's troubled
library system, for example, there's really no such thing as a clear-cut
"beginning" for anyone any longer. Alas, AFPL's new director is stepping
into the middle of something, though it's true enough that this week marks
the official beginning of his time with AFPL, and of our time with him.
And we think John Szabo will understand the guarded optimism that greets
the long-awaited successor to Mary Kaye Hooker, instead of the open-armed
enthusiasm he might deserve.
The Reasons for Our Optimism, Guarded Though It May Be
- Szabo seems to have the credentials for the job of library director. (Which might
explain why it took the Powers That Be so long to hire the guy.)
- Szabo, whoever he turns out to be for AFPL, is not Mary Kaye
Hooker. It is No Small Thing for AFPL to be rid of a certified - not
to mention a spectacularly volatile and counterproductive - lawbreaker as
its leader.
- Szabo is unlikely to hire Carolyn Garnes as his Deputy.
(If Garnes has the gall to apply for the job, we'll be glad to provide
Szabo with our garlic-and-crucifix kit for the interview.) Whoever Szabo
does hire as Deputy Director will probably not spend most of her time
removing qualified employees from their hard-earned positions so she can
install her less-qualified cronies, proteges, and sycophants in their
places (before being forced to resign herself).
- Szabo will not be encumbered by a micro-managing board of
incompetent trustees. Instead of spending inordinate amounts of
his and his subordinates' time and energy responding to the whims of the
board, he can focus that time and energy on fixing what's wrong with the
day-to-day operations of the library, either personally or by delegating
tasks to qualified subordinates he holds accountable for fixing
what's wrong. Lord knows there's plenty to fix.
- Library employees who've met Szabo have made positive noises
about him. Of course, we're all still in the destined-to-be-brief
"honeymoon" period, but people who've spent time with Szabo tell us he's
asking some interesting questions - and seems to listen carefully to the
answers he's getting (and some of those answers are not very pretty). They
also report that Szabo doesn't demand simplistic answers and that he seems
to have done his homework: he apparently isn't completely unaware of Fulton
County politics, nor is he oblivious to the history of some of AFPL's most
glaring problems.
The Reasons Our Optimism is So Guarded
- Because of what Szabo's inheriting. Which, sad to say,
includes, among other things:
- a profoundly broken institution.
- an exhausted, depleted, and justly-skeptical work force.
- an uphill battle when it comes to reinstating a positive image of the
library system in the hearts, minds, and habits of many frustrated library
users (and disgusted former users).
- Because of who Szabo is inheriting. Due to a
series of unfair personnel transactions from the McClure/Hooker/Garnes era,
a disturbingly large number of AFPL's administrators and managers - people
Szabo should be able to rely upon for information and advice - did
not get those positions because of merit or experience. Some of
them got where they are because Hooker or Garnes transferred or promoted
them into jobs occupied by other people before they ran afoul of Hooker's
and/or Garnes' methods or values, or voiced objections to one of Hooker's
or Garnes' stupid schemes or decisions. Unfortunately and inconveniently,
something John Szabo needs to take into account whenever weighing the
advice of anyone currently working at AFPL is this question: Did this
person get his/her current job through an unrigged, genuinely competitive
job interview? (There are people available who know these things.)
- Because of where Szabo is working. Fulton County
officials have demonstrated repeatedly that they preside over one of the
most ineptly-run county governments in the country.
Surely, Szabo knows this already. After all, he's met one of the county's
more grandiose commissioners, he's read about four needless murders
recently committed by a man in the county sheriff's custody, he knows that
the county forfeited $18,250,000 in taxpayer dollars rather than settle a
slam-dunk discrimination lawsuit filed a few years ago by library employees,
and Szabo saw how long it took the county to hire him. And it's
only a matter of time before his office computer will crash and he'll have
to wait a coon's age before the county's Information Technology department
finally sends somebody over to fix the damn thing.
No matter how willing and capable Szabo is - and, sadly, even because of
his abilities - he will eventually become entangled with the famous
ineptitude of certain county commissioners and certain infuriatingly
inefficient portions of the county's bureaucracy. Not to mention Szabo's
inevitable confrontation with AFPL's own well-stocked stable of employees -
including plenty of administrators and managers - who don't shoulder
anywhere near their share of the library's responsibilities despite their
relatively high salaries and routinely abused administrative prerogatives.
We particularly despair of the sizeable cadre of AFPL administrators and
managers who believe - a la Garnes - that a fetching office wardrobe is the
hallmark of an effective supervisor.
Our Own Advice for Szabo
Other than expressing our mixed sentiments, we thought perhaps the most
constructive thing AFPLWATCH could offer at this unique juncture in AFPL's
history would be to collect all the suggestions for improving the library
system that AFPLWATCH has made over the past few years and invite Szabo to
take a look at them before he begins his Herculean labors.
Not that we don't expect Szabo to dream up and pursue a few sane, refreshing
initiatives all his own. We just want him to be aware of the particular
problems - some of them huge, some of them not so daunting - that many
thoughtful, long-time staff members (and former staff members) think need
to be addressed post-haste.
So, then, Mr. John F. Szabo, we hope that after you locate the bathrooms
at Central, after you recover from the county's new-employee orientation
marathon, and as you start matching names to all those new faces you're
going to be confronted with, we hope you'll find some time to take a
gander at AFPLWATCH's "99 Ways to
Restore Excellence to AFPL".
Regardless of which problems you decide to tackle (or not), we predict
that very soon you will come to feel that you are earning every penny of
that handsome new salary of yours. Meanwhile, a hearty welcome and the
best of luck. "You're going to need lots of it," as we say to anyone
wandering on purpose into the war zone that is AFPL. (Oops! Did we say
war zone? We meant, of course, the challenging opportunity
that your coming to AFPL as its next director affords your career as
well as the people eager to work with you, so that you leave AFPL a better
place than it was when you got here.) Given the abysmally dysfunctional
shape the library system's in - a downward spiral interrupted only
nine months ago when leadership of the institution temporarily landed in
the lap of Anne Haimes - improvements at AFPL just might be inevitable!
We sincerely hope so.
Indefensible Staffing Patterns Need Urgent Scrutiny
Posted April 5, 2005
AFPL's latest circulation figures, distributed last week, show the same
patterns they have for many months now: a few branches carrying the lion's
share of the library's work, with other branches responsible for
accomplishing very little of it.
Wildly different amounts of traffic at different library facilities wouldn't
matter so much if more branch staff worked at the busiest branches than work
at less busy ones, but that is certainly not the case. There is no
discernable relationship between the number of staff assigned to
a branch (or to Central) and that facility's circulation statistics. This
past month, for example, there were three Area Libraries (Ponce, Buckhead, and
Northside) who circulated far more library materials than two of the Regional
Libraries (Southwest and South Fulton). And yet every Regional Library is
better staffed than any Area Library.
The current staffing allocations at Central and the branches are holdovers
from the era when a few notoriously unobjective trustees decided (among
other things) how AFPL's libraries would be staffed. Those staffing
allocations have not changed in years, despite the burgeoning growth of the
northernmost section of Fulton County and despite the apparent abandonment
of certain older branches by library users - or at least by customers borrowing
library materials in substantial numbers.
As AFPLWATCH has pointed out repeatedly,
the ranking of branches by the number of items they circulate has remained
remarkably stable. (Readers are welcome to compare the details of this past
month's circulation statistics to those of
February and
January of this year, and to
December,
November,
October,
September, and August of last year.) However,
branch staffing allocations have not been adjusted to reassign more
staff to the branches with the heaviest workloads.
(The only surprise in the latest batch of circulation statistics is
a spectacular jump--from 24th to 11th place--in the ranking of the Hapeville
branch. Could this anomaly be the result of one of SIRSI's famous computer
glitches rather than an actual change in the amount of work handled by
Hapeville?)
The indefensible imbalances between workloads and personnel investments at
AFPL facilities is something we hope AFPL's new director will examine without
delay. Chronic neglect of this basic management responsibility has
already resulted not only in extremely unfair circumstances for exhausted AFPL
employees who work daily with the great majority of the county's library-using
public, but in under-supported service (longer lines and protracted delays
in the processing of materials, for example) for customers patronizing the
libary system's busiest branches.
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