Pitiful. Just pitiful. 34,000 books up in smoke and we are not talking about Cheech and Chong. The Northside Sun reported this week:
Inaction results in potential loss of 34,000 books.
In what Ward Seven Councilwoman Virgi Lindsay is calling a “colossal failure,” approximately 34,000 books at the Charles Tisdale Library have likely been lost to black mold. Rest of the article.
A reading of the article will show a classic case of politicians pointing the fingers at each other while nothing gets done. Executive Director Patty Furr begged the City Council and Mayor's Office several times to seek an alternative site to the Charles Tisdale Library after it closed. They told Ms. Furr that the city first wanted to get an inventory of all property and buildings owned by the city while the City Council took her pleas under advisement. Next anyone? Well, the books mildewed while the PhD's studied and the Politicians yapped away. The mold inconveniently ignored the master plans and did what it does best, seek and destroy.
There are no excuses for this catastrophe. None. To think that the Civil Rights leaders fought like hell to get access to the Jackson libraries. Now the current leaders can't be bothered to save them.
23 comments:
Y'all can't "make out" in the stacks with all of that mold.
Next-
Library books just aren't controversial enough for the Jackson City Council to waste their time on.
They prefer a good ol' police shooting, lawsuit, or some protest that gets the cameras rolling.
Mayor Gumflapper will dance, dodge and mis-direct to avoid taking responsibility.
Haven't you heard? Baby Chock is 'working on' this. Just like he is 'working on' all the problems of the city. Reminds me of Harvey - always wanted to study the problems, but never do anything about them.
The voters spoke.
But Antar found the time to hop on a inexplicably crowded JATRAN bus for a photo op.
I've never seen a crowded JATRAN bus.
Ever.
Books are for sellouts.
The library director should be fired.
The truth is, they never really wanted the books.
I don't understand why the books aren't transferred to other libraries when the building closed. They could have been distributed among the others and salvaged. Aren't the books Library property and not subject to the inventory the city wanted? There is more than enough room at other libraries to house them all.
I don't understand ( clicking on "the rest of the article" didn't work) why the library's books weren't already catalogued and why the librarian could not have taken more aggressive actions to save, at least, the most valuable parts of the collection.
I would think going to the media with a press conference and enlisting the help of the local college and school librarians immediately upon closure would be an obvious action. Perhaps, these libraries would have even offered temporary storage.
If such actions as these were taken and met with disinterest, there's much more blame to go around.
Sad. But these days, the focus is always cost not value.
Couldn't worry about saving this library AND the zoo all at once. Must focus on the priorities of this city.
Looking at the attendance numbers for this facility is kinda impressive until you note that the numbers are primarily kids from Chastain that come after school is out and until they can go home.
Truth is, this library is not needed as much as a library but instead create a haven for middle-school kids to keep them off the street. Libraries in Jackson are like everything else - designed for the population of the 80's, and trying to be maintained for the population of today.
Sounds like they should reassign that library manager to the Zoo.
Same apathy of city employees that killed Francis Fortner. No one with the City cares one damn bit about anything.
Too radical?
It is interesting that the branch library was named after a man who, when publisher of the “Jackson Advocate”, did all he could to stir up racial animus, and had a regular list of blacks he referred to as “Suggested Members of the Brown Society”, meaning they were Uncle Toms.
Put Democrats in charge, watch your city tank.
Who needs a library when most of the city council members can't even read and write?
Seems as if the library system is systematically mis-managed.
The library has been going downhill for a long time. The philosophy of professionals is that people don't check out the books much so why bother. The library leaderships would prefer to get rid of the books in a book sale.
Libraries are "free" baby sitting services (free internet-cafes) for latch-key kids.
How did the mold get so far advanced with no one checking on it? Who is supposed to check? Interesting that the "executive director"has only seen photos. Doesn't the Library System have a maintenance department? The mold did not grow overnight. These books can't even go in the book sale. And the furniture and computers are ruined too? There is no excuse.
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