Pondering the Unspeakable Option

I’ve been thinking about libraries lately. The DC Public Library’s Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, to be specific. There’s been a debate raging over the library’s future: some want the 1972 Mies van der Rohe structure renovated and maintained as the city’s main library. Others, including the mayor, his blue-ribbon library task force, and the library’s staff, think a better use of city money would be to build a new structure a few blocks away on the old convention center site.

At first I thought one option not discussed was privatization. A possible scenario might look like this: the city would move the public library to a new site, and a private organization would take over the Mies building. Freed from the shackles of public oversight they’d be free to slash employee pay, court lucrative corporate deals, even bar the homeless. (The DC Charter Library: Brought To You By Dell) The architecture buffs would be happy and probably more comfortable in a semi-private, sanitary library than the real thing anyway. (I’ve been wondering how many of the Mies library’s defenders use the building regularly, anyhow.)

Giddy with the excitement of any good liberal indulging his libertarian side and treading on verboten political territory, I began googling for private libraries. It turns out whomever is behind the blog of the Nader group DC Library Renaissance Project was having similar fears last February when people first talked about the controversial idea of cashing in on city real estate to fund capital improvements on schools and libraries. Searching further found an interesting article from 1996 that made a convincing case the era of the modern library was over … doomed by the proliferation of information technology and the fragmentation of contemporary society.

Upon further reflection the idea seemed to unravel. Who’d go to this new institution? How would it be supported? I decided to IM a friend from Ann Arbor Edward Vielmetti, who works for the University of Michigan School of Information and authors the blog SuperPatron. Ed thinks we’ve come a long way since 1972 and pointed out new libraries have taken on a social function, centered on meeting spaces and computing resources. He noted that the Post story I sent him described the homeless using the library, and pointed me to a Wired article about how crucial the public institutions can be for this population. However, he didn’t seem to think the public library was obsolete, suggesting the Queens Library as one institution that has adapted well to the changing needs of serving a radically diverse community in the information age.

I was finding that my short-lived dreams of privatization were evaporating quickly, just like the high hopes of the advocates for the semi-private “charter” schools in DC. I’m sympathetic to the preservationists, but within limits. I find little of value in the solid cinder block stairwells and drab hallway spaces of the Mies design. Why not sell the property to a developer but just require they keep the facade? Let them gut the building — asbestos, broken elevators, fetid bathrooms and all — and let the building be reborn, perhaps with upper stories discreetly set back from the old roof line. The city’s reactionary preservationists could sit outside the old library, sipping cappuccino and admiring the beauty of the Mies design, while the rest of us attend public events, conduct computer research, and check out books in an elegant new edifice three blocks away.

Note: The photo is of my neighborhood library, the Watha T. Daniel branch. It closed with three other branches in 2004, and only recently has the library announced plans to install modular libraries (PDF) until the new branches are designed and built.

Memo to City: Plan Ahead

I was pleased to see my post about the redevelopment of the DC convention center received links from DCist and DCBlogs. As I expected it appears I am thoroughly out of the loop on the matter, however, and the developers held two public meetings in the past year to solicit public feedback on the redevelopment plan and issued formal master plan this past April. Details about all of this are on their website www.oldconventioncenter.com, which I somehow didn’t find in my research for the previous post. The final plan differs slightly from the hard-to-make-out sketch I posted yesterday. I’ll withhold my comments about the plan until I get a better look at them, but the real lesson here for DC government is to start planning ahead - this process could have been started much earlier, minimizing the city’s lost tax dollars while the land sits (nearly) empty.

The DC public libraries made a similar mistake when they closed four branch locations in 2004 (including my neighborhood library) and canceled the contract for their re-construction in order to fit them into the mayor’s blue-ribbon task force’s central-library oriented recommendations. Two years later the branches are still closed and there are no concrete plans for their re-opening. Unlike the convention center redevelopment, this case isn’t about lost tax revenue but fairness: city residents have been deprived access to a vital community resource. It’s simply an irresponsible and way to govern.

I Want a Library

I just uploaded a set of photos of my neighborhood branch of the D.C. Public Library. The library has been closed since 2004 and no plan exists for its re-construction. It was closed with two other neighborhood plans and slated for demolition and re-construction, but the D.C. Board of Public Library Trustees canceled the construction contract last fall, deciding the plans did not fit with the overall vision for the library system a task force had outlined. At a meeting last November officials told neighborhood residents the branch might not open until 2008. Temporary storefront locations to serve the three neighborhoods now without branches have also not opened, despite assurances in October the library was moving quickly to scout out locations.