RPL purging books...

At the meeting Monday night several people expressed interest in holding a rally about the disappearing books to be held this Saturday. The idea of the rally will be to get community support for the issue and also to raise awareness. One individual called the news stations to give them the story about Frank taking books off shelves after hours. Channel 13 did a short piece on it this morning. You can watch the clip or read the article here. Unfortunately, the issue was truly not explored. It appears as if the station called the administration office and asked for them to respond to the allegations instead of investigating the issue themselves.

On a positive note, it was reported that the Budget and Finance committee meeting had some interesting parts... First, regarding the leasing of the top two floors of Main, Frank responded, "That's off the table...not that it was even on the table." Eiger-Lab and Embry Riddle were both interested in leasing the two floors, but apparently something has fallen through with both of these two.

Rock River's lease was also discussed. Rockton Center's lease (with taxes) is about $60,000 a year, but Rock River's is $100,000 so they are in the process of negotiating to see if they can get a lower rate.

Again, we'll need a strong showing at this month's board meeting. The meeting will be held on Monday, April 23 at 6pm at Main. (They changed the time at the last meeting from 5:30 to 6pm since some board members had a hard time getting to the meeting so soon after work. The Main location is temporary as the room at East is being used for another purpose that night.) Please try to come.

Also, don't forget about the rally on this Saturday, April 21. It'll be at the Main library from 10am-12pm. Feel free to bring signs about the problem of the disappearing books as that is the focus of the rally.

Meeting this Monday at Bookworm

Due to the problems of the massive weeding, the movement forward with the Sullivan Center, and the board's disregard of the Open Meetings Act, it seems advisable to get some of us together prior to the next board meeting to discuss our next steps.

For those who are able to come, we'll meet at the Bookworm Cafe at the East branch library on Monday, April 16 at 6pm. Please spread the word.

Concern about Proposals Being Implemented

There has been some weeding done at the library. No big deal, right? All libraries do weeding. And the books go into the used book shop/ sale and then the money the used books bring in just goes back to the library, right?

What if that's not what was happening?

There are many rumblings about Frank Novak himself doing the weeding. There is a policy in place about what criteria is used to weed books and the policy states that there should be a second opinion given before any books are discarded. There is concern that this procedure is not being followed as it was reported that Frank gave directions to throw books away without letting any staff or the Friends of the Library see. Why the secrecy? Was it because these were perfectly good books?

In the last month, representatives from businesses have been given tours of the top two floors of the Main library.

So the question many of us are asking is this: If the proposals were merely "theoretical" why the secret weeding? Why are there prospective renters looking at the second and third floors? Massive weeding and renting out the 2nd and 3rd floors are both objectives of the proposals. So many people are concerned that Frank is slinking ahead to work to get them implemented.