County Voters Approve $275 Million Library Bond Referendum
Posted November 5, 2008; updated November 6, 2008
By a margin of almost two-to-one - 65% of voters voting yes, 35% voting no - Fulton County citizens approved the
final item on their 2008 election ballot, a referendum authorizing the county to borrow $275 million to improve the
county's public libraries.
The money, raised from the sale of bonds, will be used to build eight new branch libraries, expand two existing branch
libraries, renovate the county's other branch libraries, and help pay for a new Central Library. The details of the way the
borrowed money is to be spent are described in the library system's
Facility Master Plan.
Up to $85 million of the money raised from the sale of the bonds is earmarked for building a new Central Library,
provided the county can convince private donors to match that amount. The deadline for raising the matching funds has
not yet been set. If the matching money doesn't materialize, part or all of the money earmarked for the new Central Library
would presumably be used instead to renovate the existing Central Library.
Although there is widespread support for public libraries in Fulton County, the outcome of yesterday's vote was far from
certain. The primary threats to the bond referendum's approval were the eleventh-hour attachment to the referendum of the
proposal to build a new Central Library (not part of the originally-approved Master Plan), an unexpected sharp downturn in
the economic well-being of most U.S. households, and skepticism among many residents regarding the county government's
competence, fiscal responsibility, and integrity.
The referendum's approval authorizes the county to issue the bonds, something that will probably won't happen until early
next year.
Links to local media coverage of the bond referendum leading up to the November 4th vote
Local media coverage of the bond referendum's approval:
AFPL Limps into the 21st Century...
News & Comment Archives
AFPLWATCH news items and editorials are archived approximately one
month after they are posted.
- Scan a complete list of previously-posted news articles and editorials
here.
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LibraryLand Listening Post
News from All Over that's relevant to what's going on--or not going on--at AFPL.
- OCLC Threatens Legal Harrassment to Protect Its Book-Data Hegemony
Posted November 19, 2008
OCLC's proposed revised licensing document has created a backlash among open-access advocates in LibraryLand and alarmed
web-based book-data newcomers like LibraryThing.
What makes the controversy especially interesting is the perception that a contributor-based, non-profit cooperative
catlaloging organization has somehow morphed into an behemoth with prohibitively expensive products that has become obsessed
with maintaining its near-monopoly status in LibraryLand's cataloging kingdom - and with preserving a possibly outmoded
business model - by resorting to threatened lawsuits should a data contributor become interested in pursuing alternative
(post-Internet-invention) methods of book-data sharing.
Many bibliobloggers - including, eariler this week, the
Annoyed Librarian and legions of her readers - have discussed the ramifications of OCLC's proposed rules-tightening.
Jessica West recently provided links to several of these
discussions, then subsequently posted a link to
this one.
- Santa Comes to the Public Library
Posted November 18, 2008
Don't know whether to file this story under "Some Libraries Still Striving to Be All Things To All People" or "Dept. of
Shameless Library Publicity Stunts" or "Dept. of Really Shrewd Library Partnerships" or "First Potential Library/Xmas
Controversy of 2008" but here's the story
from Pennsylvania's Hattiesburg American.
Found via LISNews.
- The Virtues - and the Delcine - of Browsing
Posted November 16, 2008
The following excerpt from an essay about the decline of second-hand bookstores bemoans a phenomenon that plagues
libraries as well:
...the pleasure of second-hand bookshops is not only in finding what you want: it is in leafing through many volumes and
alighting upon something that you never knew existed, that fascinates you and therefore widens your horizons in a
completely unanticipated way, helping you to make the most unexpected connections.
According to the owner of a bookshop that I have now been patronizing for forty years (and who seemed to me to be of the
older generation when I first met him, but now seems, mysteriously, to be precisely the same age as I), browsing...is a
thing of the past. Young people do not do it any more, as they still did when he started his life in the trade. Instead,
they have a purely instrumental or utilitarian attitude to bookshops: they come in, ask whether he has such and such a
title, and if he does not they leave at once, usually with visible disgruntlement: for what is the point of a bookshop that
does not have the very title that they want here and now?
And although we still believe that AFPL's Holds Service is probably the best single service the library offers its
users, we still deplore the overall - and irreversible? - decline in the practice of browsing libraries, and for the same
reason this writer does.
The excerpt is from an article in the
New English Review; we found it via
Fade Theory.
- Booklover Alert: Back to the Future with Home Libraries?
Posted November 14, 2008
Making the rounds in various newspapers recently are articles
like this one that have seized upon a recent real estate industry study that found more Americans are deciding that
home libraries are A Good Thing.
Well, OK, so now home libraries are trendy again.
What's odd to us about this renewed interest in home libraries
is how these contemporary purpose-built rooms tend to end up looking more like imitiations of the libraries of Gilded Age
industrialists (J.P. Morgan's, for example) than like any of the sleek glass-and-steel public libraries and academic
libraries being built these days.
If "cozy refuge" is the ambiance associated in the Public Mind with the ideal library, we sure wish library architects
would take note of that, and embed some old-fashioned niches within their hideous minimalist-based designs.
Found via LISNews.
Read previously-posted Booklover Alerts
- Service Desk Alert: Nifty Online Print-Out Helper
Posted November 13, 2008
Here's something library workers everywhere can start aggressively
publicizing to their computer users: a website that allows an Internet user to delete all the extraneous garbage on a web
page (the ads, banners, etc.) and print out only the parts of that page the user really want to print.
Think of all the printer ink and paper that could be saved once enough Internet users become aware of and begin routinely
using this tool!
Found via Infodoodads.
- Selector Alert: New Online Resource Reviews Computer Books
Posted November 13, 2008
Although we realize that fewer AFPL selectors are using reviews to order their books these days - or, rather, will (or won't)
use reviews once selectors are allowed to begin ordering materials again next February or so - there's a new review journal
on the Internet that reviews computer books.
Library Journal has stopped running its computer-review feature, so this resource, with the somewhat odd name of
The Tech Static is especially welcome for those of us who need guidance for their necessarily-very-selective
choices among the zillions of computer books available.
Found via LISNews.
Sources of LibraryLand Bulletins:
- By a wide margin, the most frequently-used source for "LibraryLand" is
LISNews
- Other frequently-used sources (in addition to AFPLWATCH readers themselves):
Contribute an item to (or recommend another resource for) "LibraryLand Listening Post"
The Webmaster's Mailbox
Post your comment to AFPLWATCH
Read comments previously posted to AFPLWATCH.
Rumors & Speculations
Hear/Say
Garnes Still Apparently Working for County School Board
Posted November 12, 2008
A recent Googling of "Carolyn Garnes" brought up Garnes' name on a list of media specialists for the Fulton County
Board of Education. The
document lists ex-Deputy AFPL Library Director Garnes as the 2008-2009 media specialist Oak Knoll Elementary School.
Click here for everything ever posted to AFPLWATCH about Garnes
Heard any AFPL gossip recently? Share it with your colleagues by
sending AFPLWATCH an email.
If you prefer not to tell us your name, sign your email with the pseudonym
of your choice.
Read previous items posted to this section of
AFPLWATCH
Inquiring Minds Want to Know...
...what's the big holdup on hiring people for the four administrative
vacancies that AFPL finally began recruiting for five months ago?
(Posted August 10, 2006; updated October 6, November 3, and December 31,
2006; and January 16, February 7, March 7, April 11, May 15, June 13,
June 29, July 7, August 11, September 7, October 2, November 2, and
December 7, 2007; February 8, March 18, April 4, May 6, June 7, July 25, September 5, September 12, October 9,
and November 12, 2008)
Four critically-needed administrative posts - Branch Group Administrator, Technical
Services Manager, Community Relations Manager (aka public information
officer), and Central Library Administrator - have gone unfilled since their
vacancies were first advertised on March 10, 2006. All four positions had
been vacant long before then - two of them were vacated before Mary Kaye Hooker was
fired over two years ago. Surely by now there are sufficient numbers of
applicants for all four of these positions for the current library director
to choose among. Why the protracted delays in these four long-awaited
hirings, and why have there been no explanations of those delays?
October 6, 2006 Update: At a meeting of
library managers on October 5th, library director John Szabo stated that
an interviewing team for these vacancies would be created the second week
in October.
November 3, 2006 Update: At the November meeting of library managers,
there was no comment on the status of these important pending interviews.
AFPLWATCH has not been able to verify that any of these interviews had been
conducted in October or had been scheduled as of November 1st.
December 31, 2006 Update: No further news on the scheduling of
interviews for any of these four positions was forthcoming by year's end.
January 16, 2007 Update: We were reminded of the apparently interminable
impasse on filling these key vacant positions when we read a recent
posting at
The Librarian's Guide to Etiquette, one of AFPLWATCH's select
sources of reliably-hilarious library humor. To paraphrase the LGE posting:
Hiring administrators for a public library system is a big deal. Be patient
and do not rush the process, no matter how excruciatingly slow it may seem.
There is a reason that it takes longer to hire a public library administrator
than...
- growing your hair out
- filming a season of
Survivor
confirming a lifetime appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court
delivering due process to prisoners at Gitmo
creating a new human life (from foreplay to delivery)
That reason may not be obvious to anyone, but there must be a reason.
February 7th Update: At a meeting of library managers on February
5th, library director John Szabo reportedly said that he had finally received from
the county's personnel office all the paperwork on the outside applicants
for these four administrative vacancies, and that letters inviting
candidates to the job interviews would be mailed out soon.
March 7th Update: At the March 1st meeting of library managers,
an announcement was made that initial interviews for three of the four positions
had either been held earlier that week, and that initial interviews for
the fourth vacancy had been scheduled for later in March.
April 11th Update: At the April 10th meeting of library managers,
Library Director John Szabo said that interviews were still being conducted
for the four vacant administrative positions.
May 15th Update: At the May meeting of library managers, Library
Director John Szabo said that he hoped to be able to announce the appointment
of the new Public Information Officer "soon," and that a second round of
interviews of candidates for the other three administrative vacancies was
underway.
June 13th Update: At the June meeting of library managers, the status
of these four critical vacancies did not appear on the meeting agenda and
library director John Szabo said narry a word about them.
June 29th Update: According to an announcement earlier this week,
the installation of some new software in the county's personnel department
will require a month-long hiring freeze beginning July 11th. And according
to today's Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Fulton County Manager Tom
Andrews has announced he will
resign by the end of the year.
How will these two things further complicate and/or delay the filling
of AFPL's four administrative vacancies, we wonder?
July 7th Update: Once again, the status of
the library administration vacancies was not included on the agenda of the
July meeting of library managers, and library director John Szabo said nary
a word at that meeting about it.
August 11th Update: Zero, nothing, nada mentioned at the August 9th
managers' meeting about the filling of any or all of the four vacancies.
September 7, 2007 Update: More thundering
silence at the September 6th meeting of library managers about any progress
in filling the organization's four critical administrative vacancies.
October 2, 2007 Update: In an email to staff
dated October 1, 2007, AFPL Director John Szabo announced
appointments to two of the four positions.
November 2, 2007 Update: Status reports on recruitment efforts for
the remaining two unfilled Administrative Team vacancies (the Central
Library Administrator and the Technical Services Manager) were not on the
agenda of the latest monthly meeting of the library director John Szabo
with library system managers, nor did Szabo mention any developments during
that meeting.
December 6, 2007 Update: At the final 2007
meeting of library managers, nothing about the two still-unfilled administrative
positions was on the meeting agenda, and the library director made no
comments about them during the meeting.
February 7, 2008 Update: Ditto.
March 18, 2008 Update: Ditto.
April 4, 2008 Update: Ditto.
May 6, 2008 Update: Ditto.
June 7, 2008 Update: Ditto.
July 25, 2008 Update: At the July meeting of library managers,
nothing was mentioned about any progress on recruiting for the two remaining critical administrative
vacancies. (Two positions if one doesn't count the still-vacant Deputy Director position.)
However, recruiting announcements for the Technical Services Manager and the Central Library
Administrator positions were distributed to library staff July 18, 2008.
September 5, 2008 Update: Although the July 30, 2008 deadline for submitting applications for
these positions has long since come and gone, Szabo did not include on his agenda for his monthly meeting
of managers on September 4th a report on his progress in hiring for either of these positions, nor did he
refer to this issue in his comments during that meeting.
September 12, 2008 Update: Library managers received an email this past week notifying
them of yet another county-wide freeze on hiring, this one through the end of the year.
Not received so far is any email explaining whether (or how) this decree affects the recruitment/hiring of
AFPL's long-vacant Central Library Administrator and Technical Services Manager positions. This lack of
information leaves everyone needlessly wondering whether these two positions are indeed caught in the freeze
along with all the other vacancies at AFPL, or whether they will be filled before Christmas because recruiting
efforts were (formally, anyway) already in progress, or because the library director will be able to convince
the county manager to exempt these two key positions from the hiring freeze.
County-wide hiring freezes are just one reason library employees hate to see library directors - and the slow-footed,
obstructive-at-every-turn AFPL personnel department - dilly-dallying with filling the library system's vacant
positions.
October 9, 2008 Update: At his October meeting of library managers, library director John Szabo mentioned nothing about
the progress - or reasons for the lack of progress - in filling either the Central Library Administrator position or the
Technical Services Manager position.
November 12, 2008 Update: Ditto for Szabo's November meeting with library managers.
Read items previously posted to this section of AFPLWATCH
Notice something about the library that makes no sense?
Contribute an item to "Inquiring Minds"
Dept. of Wishful Thinking
Posted July 16, 2007;
Updated July 27, August 29, September 28, October 31, November 2, 2007;
April 4, May 6, June 7, June 13, September 5, October 9, November 12, 2008
Anybody want to guess how far past "the end of June 2007" the county's
Information Technology Department will announce the availability of wireless
access to the Internet in the county's public libraries? Or even when IT
will begin the installation of the wireless access gadgetry?
"The end of June 2007" wasn't the first wireless installation target date
mentioned to (skeptical) library managers, but as of mid-July, no wireless
gizmo installers had been spotted at any branch library.
July 27th Update: By late July, IT
employees had begun visiting each branch to identify where its wi-fi
equipment will (eventually) be installed. Still to come: the equipment
installations, and the procedures needed to regulate the use of this
service after the equipment is activated.
August 29th Update: Still no word that
any AFPL library has had its wi-fi equipment installed.
September 28th Update: No reports of
any wi-fi equipment having been installed at any AFPL library.
October 31st Update: Zero installments
this past month of any wi-fi equipment at any AFPL library.
November 2nd Update: Library Director
John Szabo told library managers at their monthly meeting with him that
funds to implement the wi-fi apparatus in county libraries was part of
the Information Technology Department's 2008 budget - a budget that won't
be approved until January 2008.
April 4th Update: From what someone
thought they understood from some comments the library director made at a
managers' meeting in early 2008, the funds requested for installing wi-fi in the
county'slibraries were not included in the budget the commissioners approved
in January, and the project will have to wait until county managers can
either figure out how to pay for it by shifting around existing funds, or
the ask commissioners for a special appropriation later this year. Whether
or not this report is accurate, the wi-fi project does remains on hold,
frustrated library users continue to ask library staff why it's taking so
long to implement, and there was no update on the project at the April 3rd
meeting of library managers.
May 6th Update: Although a question was asked at the May meeting of
library managers about the continued delays in implementing wi-fi in AFPL libraries, there was no progress to report:
the implementation still awaits the specific instructions of the Commissioners (or the County Manager)
to locate the funds (about $100,000 the first year) to pay for it.
June 7th Update: Having repeatedly surfacing at meetings of library managers,
questions about the incredible delays in implementing wi-fi in the library system recently surfaced again at a General Staff
Meeting. Meanwhile, more and more local fast-food chain outlets are introducing wi-fi to lure customers, and
more and more library patrons are being caught unplugging library desktop computers so they can plug in their
personal laptops instead. In other words, the farce continues for another month with no county action on this issue.
June 13th Update: As thousands of library users continue to steadily lower
their opinion of the Atlanta-Fulton Library System every time they ask (again) whether libraries finally offer
wi-fi and find out we don't, dozens of other outfits seem to be managing, somehow, to provide it. You - and
your library users - can find out exactly who's advertising that fact by checking various state-by-state, city-by-city
wi-fi directories on the Internet, such as:
In fact, to mollify the annoyance of these would-be library wi-fi users for what's apparently going to be a long
wait for in-library wi-fi, you might want to use these directories to compile a give-away printed list of the free wi-fi
providers located near your non-wi-fi-offering library. (Just be sure to update your handout frequently!)
[The list of wi-fi directories was compiled by the Montana State Library's Maggie Meredith; her list was posted
at MaintainIT Project, and that posting
was blogged by Jessamyn West at Librarian.net.]
September 5th Update: At a meeting of library managers, library director John Szabo mentioned
that the county manager had approved funding to implement wi-fi in the county's libraries, removing the primary
obstacle to its implementation. No details of a timetable for installing the equipment were mentioned.
October 9th Update: Library managers were told at their October 2nd meeting with library director John Szabo
that library staff had met with county Information Technology staff to begin planning the (staged) implementation of
wi-fi in the counties libraries, now that funding had been provided for the project. The latest projected go-live date:
early January 2009.
November 12th Update: At his November 6th meeting of library managers, Szabo said the implementation date for
wi-fi in AFPL libraries was still "early January."
Read items previously-posted to this section of AFPLWATCH
Heard or read a prediction about the library
that's wildly unrealistic?
Contribute an item to the Dept. of Wishful Thinking
Challenges Facing Large Library Systems Like AFPL
Webmaster's Note: The still-exhausted survivors of Hurricane
Hooker remain preoccupied with the excruciatingly slow and energy-draining
project of gradually freeing themselves from the embarrassing mediocrity
and dysfunctionality they find themselves and their patrons still mired in.
Meanwhile, luckier librarians in public library systems elsewhere have been
spending at least part of their time figuring out what they need to do
to be more useful to their users.
While AFPL's customers have learned to expect mediocre service from Fulton
County's libraries, AFPL administrators can't expect the library's users to
wait indefinitely for better collections, for better-equipped,
better-staffed, and better-maintained facilities, and for mission-relevant
programming.
This section of AFPLWATCH aims to highlight some of the dozens of current
library service issues and challenges AFPL administrators should be paying
attention to, and finding ways for AFPL managers and staff (those who give
a damn about improving customer service, that is) to effectively address.
Whither Librarianship?
Posted September 8, 2008
"Vice President for Innovation" Stephen Abrams has penned another thoughtful
essay about the ways libraries could reinvent themselves to better align themselves
with the realities of the post-Internet era.
Abrams pinpoints precisely how the behavior, expectations, and needs of library users
has changed radically since pre-Internet days, and caps his
essay with thirteen "Scenarios of the Future of Reference."
Previously-posted "Challenges":
-
Another Fast-Growing Group of "Underserved" Users?
Posted January 9, 2008
-
The Biggest Elephant in the
Living Room Library?
Posted September 8, 2007
-
Public Libraries: "The People's University" or Asylums for the Homeless?
Posted April 4, 2007
-
Over-Protecting Employees vs. "Throwing Them to the Sharks"
Posted November 29, 2006
-
Convincing People Who Don't Use Libraries to Start Using Them
Posted September 13, 2006
-
Clarifying the Purpose of the Public Library
Posted August 16, 2006
-
What Job Skills Should Today's Librarian Possess?
Posted July 22, 2006
-
Encouraging Creative Employees
Posted June 21, 2006
-
“Fifteen Provocative Statements”
Posted May 17, 2006
-
Library Passion vs. Library Slavery
Posted May 1, 2006
-
A Futurist Predicts the Fate of Libraries
Posted April 5, 2006
-
Keeping Library Techies Happy and Productive
Posted March 16, 2006
-
The Importance of Interactive Library Websites
Posted February 20, 2006
-
Public Libraries and the Homeless
Posted January 6, 2005
-
Services for People Who Never Darken the Library's Door
Posted December 14, 2005
-
"Libraries: Standing at the Wrong Platform, Waiting for the Wrong Train?”
Posted October 31, 2005
-
Maximizing Clarity in the Library Catalog
Posted October 19, 2005
-
An Online Public Access Catalog Manifesto
Posted October 10, 2005
-
“The Truth about Libraryland”
Posted September 6, 2005
-
The Life Cycle of Library Systems
Posted August 11, 2005
-
The Paraprofessional's Lament
Posted August 3, 2005
-
What to Do with "Digital Estates"?
Posted July 18, 2005
-
In Search of an Emotionally Healthy Library
Posted June 6, 2005
-
Are Library Catalogs Necessary?
Posted May 31, 2005
-
How Librarians Will Become Extinct
Posted August 16, 2004
Contribute an item to this section of AFPLWATCH
Wasted Taxpayers' Dollars
- County's Housing Department Squanders Millions of Federal Housing Dollars
Posted November 18, 2008
And of course the county official
responsible is still on the county payroll.
And county commissioners claim to wonder why some people insist that seceeding from Fulton County
is the only certain remedy for the chronic mismanagement of county (and, in this case, federal) taxpayer dollars.
- Investigations Expose Longstanding Problems with Two More Fulton County Agencies
Posted November 14, 2008
More depressing news about Your County At Work was reported yesterday in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
Constant themes in these AJC news stories (see below): high salaries for those responsible for
(numerous) dysfunctional agencies, and the surprised, indignant reactions of the county's commissioners, the official
(and also highly-paid) overseers of county operations.
- Fulton Voting Office Could Be Fined for Poor Planning, Rule Infractions
Posted November 9, 2008
We can now add the Elections Office to the list of incompetent county agencies.
Details from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
- Latest Development in the "We've Got the County Jail Under Control" Myth
Posted October 30, 2008
Great work over
there at the jail, Fulton County. As if the murder trial of Brian Nichols hasn't cost the county (and the state's) taxpayers
plenty already. The latest victim of that incident probably has grounds for his own expensive-for-the-county lawsuit. Even
if this prisoner doesn't file suit, do county managers think they can afford more bad publicity these days?
- Continuing Problems at Tax Assessor's Office Plague Fulton Homeowners
Posted October 28, 2008
As usual, someone had to file a lawsuit to force the county to do the right thing. And of course the huge amounts of
money involved will negatively affect the county's operating budget, either this year or next year, or for both years.
Details in today's story published by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
- Why Citizens Have Given Up on Fulton County Governance
Posted October 7, 2008
The problems at the county-operated 911 call center are worse than you ever imagined. We hope the County Manager isn't so
deluded that he thinks yet another "customer service initiative" is going to take care of problems
like these, reported in today's Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Note to County Manager: The 911 center isn't the only county department whose employees include individuals whose daily
worse-than-poor job performance and impenetrable customer-oblivious attitudes make a mockery of the county's "customer
service" mantras.
- Failed Lawsuit Against Fulton Sheriff to Be Appealed
Posted August 27, 2008
No details in this Atlanta Journal-Constitution
story about the cost (so far) of defending the county's sheriff's officers in federal court. Whatever this lawsuit (one
of several) has already cost the county (or its insurance company) in court and lawyer fees, this case apparently isn't over
yet, as the plaintiff is appealing the verdict ( = additional costs).
- The High Cost of Incompetent Security Guards
Posted August 8, 2008
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported today that the county is
paying $5.2 million to the widow of the judge killed in his county courtroom by a trial defendant who managed to
wrest a gun from a county security officer.
It's good to learn that most of this money is coming from an insurance policy the county holds, but
we wonder how much that insurance policy (and all the others like it) costs county taxpayers every year.
- Prediction: A Lawsuit about the County-Operated 911 Service
Posted August 8, 2008
Apparently the county can't do this well either.
Details from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Another avoidable tragedy, another probable lawsuit to be filed by the furious relatives of the victim.
- Continued Incompentence, More Cost Overruns at the Fulton County Jail
Posted July 10, 2008
The dreary
details published by Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
- Former Fulton County Magistrate Judge Charged With Human Trafficking
Posted June 19, 2008
Although not a story about wasted taxpayer dollars, this
indictment of a former county legal advisor who was on the county payroll a few years ago makes you think twice
about the effectiveness of the so-called "merit system" designed to persuade citizens to trust Fulton County
officials.
Found via NorthFulton.com.
- Dept. of Bread and Circuses: Commissioners Vote to Build $6 Million Concert Venue
Posted April 4,2008
...despite the fact that the county doesn't have enough money in its coffers
to properly maintain the facilities it already owns, despite the the fact
that a county revenue shortfall is expected this year, and despite the fact
that the construction estimates for the concert arena are three years old.
Details from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
- $74,000 Fulton County Contract for Not Doing Any Work
Posted February 11, 2008
So much for the county's careful monitoring of its lucrative contracts.
In
this case, you have to wonder why this never-done work was ever deemed worthwhile
in the first place, especially its price tag is as big as this one.
Even more infuriating: the county's officials don't seem to have in place
any regulations that would allow the county to recoup this money for county
taxpayers.
- The New Yorker's Take on the Nichols Case
Posted January 31, 2008
The Brian Nichols murder trial has caught the attention of the New Yorker.
Jeffrey Toobin,
writing in the magazine's February 4th issue, sums up the bumbling of
county employees both before and after Nichols' March 11, 2005 killing
spree at the Fulton County Courthouse:
"After the shanks [the home-made weapons] were discovered [on Nichols while
he was in the county sheriff department's custody during Nichols second
trial for an alleged rape], [presiding] Judge Barnes said he wanted the
sheriff's department, which handles security at the courthouse, to provide
Nichols with additional guards, yet he was escorted to court [on the morning
of the 11th] by a single female deputy sheriff. Part of [Nichols'] attack
on the deputy was captured by surveillance cameras, but no one was
monitoring them....During a subsequent investigation, five sheriff's
deputies were found to have lied about their actions with regard to Nichols.
Eight deputies were fired for misconduct, all but two of whom were
later rehired." [Emphasis ours.]
If lost revenues from the several cities that have defected from county
government, plus the county's share of the cost of prosecuting Nichols
don't bankrupt the county, the settling of several lawsuits filed against
the county by the relatives of Nichols' victims probably will. The
almost unbelievable fact that the county re-hired negligent county
employees whose actions or failures to act (or even to be at their assigned posts
on March 11, 2005) probably strengthens the arguments for wrongful death
that have been made in those lawsuits. Higher taxes, anyone? And does
everyone having business at the county courthouse feel safer, now that
the security staff there assumes they can get their jobs back if they
ever (temporarily) lose them through incompetence? And yet commissioners
continue to deny that Fulton County government is beyond reform.
- Newspaper Headline Reminds Taxpayers of County Funds Squandered in 2004
Posted January 21, 2008
The relevant statement - "Fulton [County] eventually recovered all but $500,000 of the $7.2 million in
improperly invested funds" occurs at the end of this Atlanta Journal-Constitution story.
- Nichols Case Cost County Taxpayers Another $125,000...
Posted January 17, 2008
...and that's before the inevitable legal settlements arising out of
multiple lawsuits filed against the county by Nichols' victims' families.
The $125,000 is also in addition to the $1.5 million Nichols' lawyers
have already spent on their client's defense.
Details from today's Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
- County Taxpayers to Pay Less for Smaller Government? Not in Fulton!
Posted January 16, 2008
More than one county commissioner
publicly denies there's any relationship between the salaries of
several of its department heads and the now-diminished extent of their
previous responsibilities.
How come the logic of higher-salaries-for-more-extensive-responsibilities
doesn't work in reverse, we wonder? But then, logic is always the
first casualty when an entrenched power bloc, like the Fulton County
Commission, loses - through it repeated incompetence and refusal to
sanely steward taxpayer dollars - the confidence of the people who
elected them.
Spooky Quotation
Posted July 16, 2007
"What happens when we stop focusing energy on things that we can’t control?
That energy gets focused on things that we can control, and ironically, we
end up exerting more influence."
--Peter Bromberg, from
a July 6, 2007 posting to Library Garden
* * *
Read previously-posted quotations from the Post-Hooker era; from the Hooker era
Comic Relief
Public Library: Communist Threat
Posted October 22, 2008
From the desk of Stephen Colbert (via YouTube, of course), this video.
* * * * *
Read library humor items previously posted to AFPLWATCH:
-
Odd Stuff People Ask For at Library Service Desks
Posted September 11, 2008
-
Greeting Cards for Co-Workers
Posted July 1, 2008
-
What Do You Call a Group of Librarians?
Posted February 27, 2008
-
Are Your Library Co-Workers Insane?
Posted August 1, 2007
-
Reparations Sought from Public Libraries Nationwide
Posted July 15, 2007
-
Dept. of Literary Humor
Posted June 8, 2007
-
"Go Where the Users Are!"
Posted March 21, 2007
-
"Librarianship, I Wish I Knew How I Could Quit You"
Posted February 1, 2007
-
"Nation's Gays Demand Right to Library Cards"
Posted January 18, 2007
-
When Librarians Attack! DVD Enjoys Brisk Sales
Posted December 13, 2006
-
Help Stamp Out Library Trends!
Posted November 22, 2006
-
What's with Libraries and Those Annoying Golf Pencils?
Posted November 3, 2006
-
"The Annoyed Librarian's" Guide to Summer Fun
Posted August 7, 2006
-
"The Annoyed Librarian's Guide to Public Service"
Posted July 17, 2006
-
Library Spa 2.0
Posted June 14, 2006
-
Are You Geeky Enough to Become a Librarian?
Posted May 6, 2006
-
The Seven Habits of Highly Successful Librarians
Posted January 19, 2006
-
"Rules for Approaching the Kung Fu Librarian’s Desk"
Posted December 14, 2005
-
The Wit & Wisdom of "The Warrior Librarian"
Posted October 26, 2005
-
Ideas for Library Conference Topics
Posted September 20, 2005
-
"Signs, Signs, Everywhere Are Signs..."
Posted September 13, 2005
-
"Guide to Old Fashioned Library Remedies"
Posted September 6, 2005
-
Organizational Administration: A Modern Lexicon
Posted August 11, 2005
-
Spontaneous Human Combustion At The Circ Desk
Posted July 27, 2005
-
The Top 50 Publisher-Rejected Children's Book Titles
Posted July 22, 2005
-
Filing Cabinets Can Be Hazardous to Your Health!
Posted July 11, 2005
-
A Compendium of Funny Reference Questions
Posted June 29, 2005
-
"Do You Work Here?"
Posted June 20, 2005
-
You Know You're a Librarian When...
Posted June 10, 2005
-
Romance Novel Cover Art In Search of Less Euphemistic Titles
Posted May 28, 2005
-
David Letterman's Top 10 Drawbacks to Working in a Cubicle
Posted December 31, 2003
-
Advanced Governance
Posted December 13, 2003
Contribute an item to this section of AFPLWATCH
Relibably-hilarious library humor Internet sites
(updated November 14, 2008):
History Lessons
Flashbacks!
November at AFPL
Two Years Ago...
November 2006
Managers were informed that library administrators had decided to abandon decentralized selection of library materials
and institute a committee-driven centralized selection process. This decision was apparently driven primarily by the
consistent failure of certain branch managers to expend their annual materials budgets.
Throughout the month of November, strong objections were raised to this proposed "solution" to a chronic
personnel problem. Some of those objections showed up at afplwatch.
Instead of moving forward with the proposal to centralize selection, library administrators instead implemented (the
following January) a cumbersome centralized ordering scheme. Although that scheme had made it virtually
impossible for branch selectors to promptly order (or re-order) what their customers most urgently need in branch library
collections, control of what gets (eventually) ordered continues to remain with each branch rather than being dictated by a
system-wide selection committee.
Three Years Ago...
November 16, 2005
After many months of acrimoious wrangling, the Fulton County Commission
finally releases over $600,000 to finish equipping and furnishing the
library system's newest branch (and one of its busiest) at Ocee - with
the stipulation that $86,000 of the funds originally intended for Ocee
be spent for materials at the Martin Luther King, Jr. branch library.
November 17, 2005
AFPLWATCH posts its "report card" on AFPL's director John
Szabo after his first six months on the job.
Three Years Ago...
November 2004
A public library system in Florida declines to hire Mary Kaye Hooker, who
had applied for the job there after having been fired as AFPL director in
May 2004 and losing out on an earlier bid for a vacant director's position
in Michigan. AFPL employees are relieved to learn that their colleagues in
Grand Rapids and
Jacksonville will
be spared from the experience of being "led" by MKH.
November 20, 2004
Despite having previously closed its Martin Luther King, Jr. branch due to
low use by the public and its proximity to several other libraries, the
library system re-opens the branch in a new location several blocks away
from its original location.
November 30, 2004
Barbara Osborne-Harris, the only D-level manager recruited for AFPL by Mary Kaye Hooker,
resigns seven months after Hooker hired her, and four months after Hooker was fired.
Her position, Branch Group Administrator, remains unfilled, resulting in almost three
dozen branch managers reporting to a single supervisor for the past two
years.
Five Years Ago...
November 2003
Headlines:
- "[Taxpayers'] Group Calls for Ouster of Atlanta Public Library
Officials"(American Libraries, November 2003, page 16, 18)
- "Atlanta-Fulton PL Director Praised; Board Chair Says Lawsuit Verdict
Does Not Affect Positive Evaluation" (Library Journal, November 15,
2003, page 18)
November 19, 2003
Pronouncement made by former AFPL trustee Clint Johnson at the monthly
meeting of the library board [Minutes, page 60]:
"The Central problem out front, the mess that we’ve covered up with a
fence, the day before yesterday Grace Davis (the contractor) was officially
slam dunked, they’re gone. They are going to turn this over to the GSA Fast
Track under Mr. Peluzi. And they are going to get this done ASAP. They are
going to finish that area down by the children’s library section and out
front. So at least we got that done."
Six Years Ago...
November 2002
Headline: "Warnings Presaged Atlanta PL Deaths: Murdered Manager Asked
Police to Sit In on Hearings Three Times" (Library Journal,
November 1, 2002)
Seven Years Ago...
November 2001
Headline: "Appeals Court Judge Okays Legal Action by Eight Relocated
Librarians" (Library Journal, November 1, 2001, page 20)
Nine Years Ago...
November 1999
Newspaper headlines:
- "Consultants Propose Smaller Library Board" (Atlanta
Journal-Constitution, November 17, 1999)
- "Audit Recommends Smaller Library Board: 17-Member Board Meddles Too
Much" (Alpharetta-Roswell News & Revue, November 30, 1999)
Eleven Years Ago...
Headlines from Atlanta Journal-Constitution news stories:
- "Library Director to be Reprimanded: Atlanta Board Cites Letter's
Distribution" (November 20, 1997)
- "Library Head's Complaints Get Mixed Reply: Board Split: Some Want
Hunter Disciplined, While Others Say Her Requests Warrant Consideration"
(November 20, 1997)
Headline from an Alpharetta-Roswell News & Revue news story:
- "Library System in Turmoil: Director Decries Micromanagement"
(November 7, 1997)
Fifteen Years Ago...
November 1993
After repeated requests from librarians in the Central Library, AFPL
administrators agree to connect AFPL to the Internet. The connection
(via SOLINET) is limited to two staff terminals in Central's Ivan Allen
Department. IAD staff begin training other Central staff in early 1994;
due to the Board of Trustees' refusal to come up with matching funds to
pay for more connections, there is no public access to the Internet at
AFPL until 1997.
|
The Library Lawsuits
Upshot
County, Librarians Settle Discrimination Lawsuit
Posted January 8, 2004
Additional links posted January 9 and January 17, 2004
Final two paragraphs updated monthly between January 2004 and July 2004
A settlement has been reached in the case of the racial discrimination
lawsuit against the Atlanta Fulton Public Library. According to
reports in local media, the settlement consists of three payments of
over $6,000,000 each, for a total of more than $18,000,000, to the 8
plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
The settlement ends a bitter struggle that began in September 1999 with
the arrival of Mary Kaye Hooker as AFPL's library director. Testimony
and evidence at the trial showed that library board members repeatedly
expressed their concern to Hooker over the racial make-up of management at
the Central Library. On two occasions, the board demanded a list of Central
managers by race, and board committee minutes recorded board members’
comments about the race of the Central managers and a need to do
something about it. The plaintiffs argued that a May 2000 transfer of
most of Central's managers was the outcome of the board’s concern over
the race of the managers, and that the transfers were equivalent to
demotions.
At the federal trial in January 2002, the jury found for the
plaintiffs. The county appealed the verdicts and the amount of the
jury's damage awards: $23,364,400 million, plus court costs of an additional
$371,316 (later reduced by the judge to a total of $16,859,400).
In June 2003, a panel of the appeals court judges affirmed
the lower court rulings; in July, it rejected the county's request for
the entire court to review the case. The county then appealed the case
to the U.S. Supreme Court, which was scheduled to decide on January 9,
2004 whether or not to grant the appeal.
At its December 17, 2003 meeting, the Fulton County Board of
Commissioners, whose new chair had been elected the previous month,
authorized the county's attorney to make another settlement offer to
the plaintiffs, and the plaintiffs accepted that offer later in
December. The confidential settlement agreement was revealed by WSB-TV
News on January 7th.
Contrary to the initial media report (and subsequent ones), all eight
of the plaintiffs--Janet Bogle, Sherri Bowers, JoLynn Burge, Jean Cornn,
Maureen Kelly, Nancy Powers, Mary Starck, and Katharine Suttell--are
white. Monica Foderingham-Brown, an African-American librarian, had
been part of the suit from the beginning, but the trial judge removed
her from the case after ruling there was insufficient evidence to
support Foderingham-Brown's claim that her transfer had resulted from
her having spearheaded a petition calling for the board to resign well
before the May 2000 transfers.
Read the
story as reported in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Read the
story as reported in the online edition of Library Journal.
Read the
story as reported in the online edition of American Libraries.
Read a
summary of the court's decision written by librarians for librarians.
Read an
analysis of the court's findings published in the Stetson Law Review.
Beween June 6, 2003, when the appeals court upheld the lower court's
guilty verdicts and multi-million-dollar damage awards against Mary Kaye
Hooker and William McClure, and May 19, 2004, when the County Manager
fired Hooker, the Commissioners met twenty-three
times. At any one of those meetings
the commissioners could have voted to no longer pay Hooker's salary and
recommended that McClure be removed from the library's board of trustees;
they did not do that.
The library system's
Board of Trustees met fourteen times between the
appeals court's June 6, 2003 ruling and May 19, 2004, when the County Manager
fired Hooker. At any point during that period, the board could have fired
Hooker for violating federal anti-discrimination laws, but they did not do
so. The trustees also failed to remove McClure from the board, despite the
fact that he, too, violated federal anti-discrimination law.
The Commission's and the library board's failure to dismiss Hooker and
McClure took place amid various demands - for example, the Fulton County
Tax Association's June 2003 "Call to Remove
Fulton Library Director and Library Board Member Found Guilty of Practicing
Discrimination" - that these two individuals be prevented from further
damaging the library system.
After library and county officials failed to act, Georgia's legislators
passed a bill in the spring of 2004 that abolished the library board
of trustees as of June 30, 2004, thus ending McClure's tenure on the
library board. On May 19, 2004, the county manager (empowered as Hooker's
supervisor by the recent legislation) finally fired Hooker.
Read previously-posted updates on the lawsuit,
including a photo of the
plaintiffs
Library Settles Second Lawsuit
Filed for Retaliation Against AFPL Employees
Who Won Previous Lawsuit
In December 2003, a settlement was reached in a separate lawsuit against
AFPL filed by librarians Mary Starck and Maureen Kelly, two plaintiffs in
the previous lawsuit against library system.
The second suit charged both discrimination and retaliation. Kelly protested a
punitive transfer and Starck protested the denial of a job - she had been
the preferred candidate and eventually was chosen only after she filed a
grievance.
The second lawsuit was settled for $250,000. This settlement was in
addition to the $18 million that Fulton County paid to settle the lawsuit
filed by Kelly, Starck, and other AFPL employees in 2000.
One of our favorite quotes from the various news reports about the second lawsuit:
"When I learned we had two of the plaintiffs in the original lawsuit
before us again in EEOC grievances, I was incredulous. Then I was furious.
Nobody could be that stupid, I thought."
-Stephen Dorvee, Vice Chairman, AFPL Board of Trustees,
Alpharetta Revue & News, October 15, 2003
AFPLWATCH's reaction (posted October 20, 2003) to Dorvee's comment:
All library personnel transactions, including recommendations for hire
(like the one for the position Starck interviewed for) and transfers (like
Kelly’s) go through the library's administrative chain of command before
they reach the full board of trustees. That chain includes libary human
resource manager Sylvia Culver, library director Hooker, and the library
trustees' Personnel Committee. Every single person along that chain of
command who signed off on these transactions had to have known the names
of the two individuals involved in those transactions, and that those
individuals were plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the library. If the
"system worked", how did both these actions get past Culver? Past Hooker?
Past the members of the [trustees'] Personnel Committee?
Despite Hooker's attempts to spin to the trustees and to the county's
Equal Employment Opportunity Office how these incidents occurred, Hooker's
fingerprints are all over these personnel actions, right next to those of
former Deputy Director Carolyn Garnes.
Not long after the EEOC grievance was filed that led to the second lawsuit,
Deputy Director Carolyn Garnes abruptly resigned; eight months after that,
Library Director Mary Kaye Hooker was fired. Culver, however, still works
as AFPL's Human Resources Manager.
Background
- Anyone not familiar with the facts of the original lawsuit may want
to read
a summary of the circumstances leading up it.
- Summaries of the testimony given each day during the original trial,
compiled from notes taken by AFPL employees who attended, are posted
here.
Documents
Hurricane Hooker
(August 19, 1999 - May 19, 2004)
"Hooker's  Howlers"
Grab yourself a barf bag and read a sampling of the
lies and distortions from the mouth or word processor of Mary Kaye
Hooker before the County Manager finally fired her on May 19, 2004.
"Daily Affirmations" for Mary Kaye Hooker?
Posted February 21, 2004
"Still Strategizing..."
Posted August 17, 2003
The Ideal Library Director...
...is the opposite of what AFPL had from 1999 to 2004.
Updated May 9, 2003
Library Staff Morale:
In the Proverbial Toilet
Posted May 5, 2003
By the time former library director Mary Kaye Hooker was finally
fired in May 2004 and the former library board was abolished in June
2004, morale among library workers had sunk to its lowest level in over
a decade. To find out why, read "The Floggings
Will Continue Until Morale Improves!"
The Amateur Hour:
AFPL's Trustees at Work
Peacocks on Parade:
Embarrassing Antics of AFPL's Clueless Trustees
Updated May 16, 2005
Examples of the cluelessness and/or ego tripping of AFPL's board of trustees.
"Scoundrel Time"
Final Update: January 21, 2004
William McClure once chaired AFPL's library board and--despite the
successful $18 million lawsuit brought against him and others for race
discrimination against library employees--McClure remained a board member
and committee chair until the former board was abolished by Georgia law
on June 30, 2004.
Shortly after leaving AFPL and until he died on October 25, 2005 at age 57,
McClure "served" the citizens of East Point as a city council member. For
comments from East Point citizens outraged about McClure's antics on the
council, read "Reports about One of Our Former
Illustrious Board Members".
Damning Documents
Down the Rabbit-Hole:
Dispatches from The Surreal Library
Sobering Thoughts in a Troubled Time
Read these Sobering Thoughts, posted during Hooker's regime:
- "Teamwork - and, at AFPL, Its Opposite"
- “Brutal Bosses and Their Prey”
- “Those Who Can, Do; Those Who Can’t, Bully”
- Does this sound like any library director you know?
- Does this sound like any board of trustees you know?
- The Secret Wellspring of "Hookerspeak" Revealed!
- “Does Your Boss Put the ‘I’ in Idiot?”
- "When Dopey's in charge, it's you who's always out of your mind..."
- "Being a Library Director Means Never Having to Say You're
Sorry
--No Matter How Sorry You Are"
- Workplace sociopathy + sadism + narcissism + paranoia = the Business Psychopath
- "Clouds of excuses and disclaimers..."
- "The 10 Deadly Sins of Leadership"
- "Deception of others is closely linked with self-deception...."
A Library System in Shambles
The Bad Drives Away The Good:
The AFPL Brain Drain, 1999-2004
Updated August 17, 2004
For the breathtakingly long list of the many administrative
employees, subject specialists, and computer technicians who were
involuntarily transferred, prematurely retired, or resigned from the
Central Library during (or shortly after) the five-year tenure of
recently-dismissed Library Director Mary Kaye Hooker, check
"Would the Last One Out Please Turn Out
the Lights?"
|
|
If you have already received--or if ever in your life you do receive--an
application for your city's or county's vacant library director position
from this individual--Mary Kaye Hooker, aka Mary Kaye Donahue-Hooker aka
Mary Kay Donahue--instruct your interview team to request and review
a free copy of The Hooker Dossier before offering a job
to this applicant.
