$80,000 Bookmobile Still in Mothballs
Posted October 12, 2004
Commissioners Hire (Another) Law Firm
to Investigate Problems at AFPL - Again
Posted May 3, 2004
Another Barrel of County Pork
Posted March 15, 2004
“Project Name: Contract Compliance/Minority Vendors (MFBE)”
“Project Manager: Ed Robinson, Financial Systems Manager"
“[Status:] On Track.
The initial contracts for books and materials include over $500,000 of MFBE
participation.”
--“AFPL Project Status Report: February 2004,” page 10
AFPLWATCH Comment:
Gee, thanks a lot, Ed--or rather, to the Fulton County Commission, which a few years back
decreed that county departments, including the library, must begin diverting more county funds to
minority-owned businesses. This may be fine for obtaining materials from industries well-populated
with minority-owned firms, but, unfortunately for library customers, the shelf-ready library book-vending
industry is not one of them. While politicians can congratulate themselves for meeting more
minority-business participation quotas, library customers--including members of minority groups--are getting very little out of the deal.
Thanks to this county-imposed purchasing mandate--or, rather, the ham-fisted way Hooker & Co.
have implemented it at the library, branch libraries are stuck with a requirement this year to order
materials from a vendor who:
- stocks mostly specialized materials designed more for school students than for public library
users
- doesn’t process the materials we are required to purchase from them (a requirement for
all other vendors, and the justification for awarding exclusive contracts to chosen vendors instead of
just ordering stuff from whoever can get it to you the fastest and most cheaply)
- prices its specialized materials (such as videos from independent filmmakers) far above
what libraries are used to paying other vendors for these types of materials
- alphabetizes its book inventory by authors’ first names
Adding mismanagement to the unforeseen consequences of the commission's political agenda,
library administrators have further mandated that even branches who don’t need the type of materials this
vendor offers must spend with this vendor a certain amount of their pitifully small book budgets.
Meanwhile, the library dropped the vendor of specialized materials it used the past several years--a
vendor well-known in libraryland who supplied a much broader range of specialized materials than
this year's "specialized materials vendor" but which was not "minority-owned." And who suffers?
Library users, who won't be seeing the materials we might've been able to get from last year's
specialized vendor, but that library selectors won't be able to obtain from this year's minority-owned
one.
Yep, we're "operating the library more like a business" (as Hooker was always yammering about) all
the time!
Taxpayers' Alert
Posted March 15, 2004
Annual cost of recording and transcribing the minutes of the library's board of trustees:
$8,929. (Source:"AFPL Financial Report, October 2003," page 2]
AFPLWATCH Comment:
This figure does not include the cost of printing and distributing multiple copies of each month's
minutes. We have suggested before that the board ought to at least recoup these latter costs
by asking the library's system's webmaster to (routinely and promptly) post on the library's web
site (as PDF files, so as to avoid re-typing) the board's agendas, accompanying documents, and
approved minutes. This time- and money-saving suggestion has, alas, fallen on deaf ears.
Oh well, at least the county has recently refused to continue broadcasting on its cable
television station the board's monthly deliberations. Besides sparing the library a world of
embarrassment, this measure will save taxpayers $58,000 per year.
Dept. of Useless Solutions
Updated November 25, 2003
Project Name: Panic Buttons
Project Scope:
Library systemwide installation of panic buttons as a
security enhancement.
Timeline: All “Silent Knight” locations completed.
Project On Target? Yes
--from Hooker's “AFPL Project Status Report, October 2003,” page 4
AFPLWATCH Comment:
Does Hooker--or the trustees, to whom Hooker feeds her Status Report
every month--realize that these panic buttons are far from “silent”?
That any staff member tempted to push one of these buttons in an
emergency would set off a very loud alarm that would further
antagonize anyone who caused them to trigger the alarm in the first
place? This is worse than having no alarms at all, as it gives the
administration a false sense that they have somehow “enhanced” the
security of library employees when they've probably just enhanced
their risk! What staff requested after the recent murder of one of
their colleagues in her office were SILENT alarms--buttons that would
alert the police to an emergency requiring their immediate assistance--
not a way to provoke a violent or potentially violent perpetrator. “Silent Knight” indeed. And how
much did these useless non-silent alarms cost the library system?
Crater in Front of Central Library Now Two Years Old
Posted March 4, 2004
Fulton County Taxpayer Dollars Wasted in 2003
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