Several questions were put to the Kansas City Public Library staff in response to internal allegations that less floor space was allotted for the total library collection at the new downtown library facility - the renovated bank building intended to be a showpiece for the surrounding Library District real estate development project - and that the collection therefore had been reduced to a smaller size while being "dumbed down to mass market" to "fit the institution" or mentality of its customers. One of the most important reasons given for moving to the new location was that the old library was "too small." The total spatial parameters disclosed to the public indicate that the new building plus an administrative annex are in fact larger than the old building, yet it has been asserted that too much of the new space is being employed for mere "show business", to the cost of content.
Of course the most obvious "bookkeeping" questions were asked in order to ascertain the total quantity (whether accessible to the public or not) of square footage available at the old library, whether it was actually used for the collection or not; and the total quantity of space (whether accessible to the public or not) allotted for the collection at the new library; then, "before and after" comparisons could be made. As for the collection itself, the respective collection sizes were requested for before and after the winnowing or "weeding" process. A list of some of the books weeded was requested so that qualitative opinions could be rendered.
Therese Bigelow, deputy director of Kansas City Public Library's Branch Services and Collections, said she was unable to provide a list of the books weeded, nor was she able to give the dates withdrawn and reasons withdrawn for certain good books identified in a random search - listings that had not yet been purged from the computer system. Nor did she respond to a request to query the database for a list of all withdrawn books not yet purged from the database. She did provide one set of "current" figures, for the collection as of December 31, 2003:
380,612 books
25,266 videos & DVDs
5,366 audio books & books on Tape
8,032 compact discs
2,195 periodical subscriptions
641,282 government documents including microfilm, microfiche and print sources.
1,067,816 total collection - the total includes a large number of miscellaneous items in special collections that do not fit the above categories.
Ms. Bigelow did not respond to several requests for collection sizes prior to that date, so that side-by-side comparisons could be made, nor did she affirm or deny a rumor that nearly 50,000 books had recently been withdrawn from the main library collection. In response to this journalist's complaint that the public library could not account for the public property entrusted to it, she attributed the difficulties to an inadequate computer system:
"We are getting a new automation system this spring that has better tools for collection analysis than the one we have been using for probably 20 years - I have only been with the library system since 1994."
As for the alleged "dumbing down" in quality corresponding to the relocation of the library, Ms. Bigelow denied that the quality had been changed for the move, and asserted that there had been no weeding process for some time.
"Prior to this year the collection at the downtown library had not been systematically weeded or inventoried in over 30 years. The collection inventory is more responsible for any reduction in collection size than the weeding project which was undertaken to align the collection with the Collection Development Plan rather than to fit the collection into the new library." Further, "The collection inventory is more responsible for any reduction in collection size than the weeding project which was undertaken to align the collection with the Collection Development Plan rather than to fit the collection into the new library."
She was asked to state the qualitative impact on the collection resulting from the fitting of the collection into the new library, something 'close enough for jazz' that would demonstrate that the real nature of the fitting was not being buried or hidden in the prolix professional rhetoric about collection development.
"There is no qualitative affect," she responded. "No effort was made in planning or otherwise 'to fit the collection into the new location.' I have been on record for many years telling people that the collection will both fit and have room to grow. The reasons you get what seems like wishy-washy answers to your questions is that, until we did the inventory, we did not really know how large the collection actually was. The final count on shelving for the new location was not determined until recently. Some of the planning was changed as we went along to establish what parts of the collection would be in the different areas. I can get you those figures if you are interested in having them. There is one factor that must be considered in comparing shelving to shelving at the two locations. Shelving capacity does not determine the size of the collection. It is a combination of shelving capacity and circulation. A library with a good healthy circulation can own far more books and other items than a library with a stagnant one."
Shelving configuration is certainly relevant to collection size; however, the fundamental consideration is floor space available for consideration. In any case, the size of a collection does not necessarily determine its quality: no doubt a somewhat smaller library might contain a better collection than a larger one. Ms. Bigelow provided the following square footage used for all purposes at the old library:
A level 25,851
B level 27,063
1st Floor 28,996
2nd Floor 23,592
3rd Floor 13,339
4th Floor 13,339
5th Floor 10,364
Total 142,544
"My understanding is that the square footage at the new location is 175,000, plus an additional 15,000 sq feet at the Annex," said Ms. Bigelow.
"As an aside, the shelving on A and B was never full," she added. In respect to the collection, that statements seems to give the lie to one major, well publicized reason for moving, that the old space was too small. The A and B levels, or 'Stacks', were in the basement, comprising most of the 70% of the collection not accessible to the public; the accessible portion was identified as 'Circulation' in the online catalog.
A library assistant at the information desk on the first floor stated that members of the public could not go into the basement unless accompanied by a librarian because "they might get lost down there." Furthermore, according to a librarian on the third floor, vagrants had allegedly managed to get into the "fetid" basement and use it as a toilet; there were only two public men's rooms available for that purpose, and two small sinks therein for washing clothes, hence deposits were made elsewhere from time to time; for instance, a man defecated on the floor of the historic Missouri Valley Room during this journalists initial visit to the library.
When Ms. Bigelow was asked why the basement levels were not opened up and managed for browsing by the public, she replied, "Closed stack areas were a common design in public libraries in the past. Materials were assigned to closed stacks for a number of reasons. During my time with Kansas City materials were assigned to A and B level because they were infrequently used, were duplicate copies, or were out of date reference materials and the newest edition was kept in the reference area. All books were available through the catalog."
"Based on the annual circulation figures and Intra System loan figures for the collection housed at Main," she said, "books located in the stack area are heavily requested through the catalog listing and either checked out here or at one of the branches. Annual circulation for this building was 595,113 last fiscal year, July 2002 - June 2003. We track the figure for "intra system loan" which means the book was sent from one location to another at a customer's request. The total of Intra System loans for Main for December was 6,610 with a total of 97,014 for last fiscal year."
Ms. Bigelow did not report specific circulation figures for the basement areas. When asked why she had said, on the one hand, that the stacks consisted of infrequently used items, yet, on the other hand, she had bragged of circulation of the stack, she clarified her statement.
"For clarification, I am saying that, There is access to the books on A and B level through the computer catalog and through staff. Books were placed on A and B level because they were individually used less than the books on the first and second floor."
Ms. Bigelow did not respond to this journalist's proposition that books are more likely to be used, whether checked out or not, if they are available for browsing, and that any librarian who doubted the educational virtues of public browsing would be a fool. Further, withdrawing books from the stacks just because they were seldom requested would be an unprofessional practice, and the fact that stacks of some libraries were closed to the public is no excuse for keeping all stacks closed. In fact, a big selling point at the new Main Kansas City library is that 70-80% of the collection will be available for browsing.
As for the current circulation figures, it is interesting to compare with them figures for the year ending June 30, 1905, when the population was a small fraction of today's. In that year, nearly a century ago, 279,591 books were circulated for home use. In 1906, the following year, 47,333 books were loaned out to 20 substations set up in outlying schools - the books were delivered by wagon in canvas bags, each bag holding about 100 books.
Given a collection of 380,612 and circulation of 595,113 for 2003, average turnover per volume would be 1.56 X in 2003. On the other hand, turnover for 1906, given a collection of 80,000 and circulation of 279,591, would be 3.50 X per volume.
During the course of the investigation, a librarian mocked previous investigations by "reporters with hidden cameras." He said the question of collection quality had also been investigated by a local "sidewalk newspaper", Pitch, and that the spokesperson responding had made a fool of the reporter. Tony Ortega, managing editor of the Pitch, managed to locate the article in question at:
http://www.pitch.com/issues/2001-06-14/janovy.html/1/index.html
Ms. Bigelow's current categorical denial, that the weeding process was irrelevant to the relocation of the library, should be considered in context of her statements to the Pitch in 2001. Many librarians then were privately making the same "dumbing down" statements as they are now.
'Librarians have a careful process for determining what stays and what goes, and Bigelow says the move is forcing them to do what they've been putting off. "There are experiences even the best librarians go through and ask, 'Do I have to live through that again?' Collection shaping is one of those. We have not evaluated our collection against our collection development plan, and that's what we're doing. We're looking at storage issues [whether material is better stored on microformat], what's in poor condition, what's dated." For instance, she says, "A book on AIDS published ten years ago is a dangerous book." ' (Pitch)
Again, when most recently asked about particular titles of excellent books which had been withdrawn from the stacks, Ms. Bigelow could not say precisely when or why they were withdrawn, blaming the information system for the lack of information. In once instance she gave a clearly erroneous answer about the information that was available, and had to be corrected - it was further observed that two librarians did not understand the information returned by the online catalog system.
For instance, Ms. Bigelow was questioned on two items which were in the catalog but were not immediately available at the Main branch - a librarian actually searched the shelves for the second book after looking it up in the catalog. The catalog record for the first title, The Torch of Freedom, Emil Ludwig's fascinating biography of twenty exiles, including Stefan Zweig, was marked "No Item" - the librarian said it had last been checked out of the basement stacks in 1977. The second volumn, Balzac, Stefan Zweig's excellent biography of the famed author, had two records in the catalog, a "No Item" record for the withdrawn book, and one record showing that it is available through a consortium.
Ms. Bigelow was asked: Why were these books withdrawn? When were these books withdrawn? Were these books in the public area for browing?
"In looking at the record for the first item," she replied, "I suspect it was withdrawn as part of the inventory. And since it had not been checked out since 1977, it probably has been missing since then. In looking at the catalog entry for Balzac, the record indicates that we do not own the item downtown, not that we withdrew it for any reason. When the record says "this branch has no holdings" it means that the title is owned by either a branch(s) within our system or by one or more of the consortium partners who share their collections with us. When you chose all locations it indicates that the title is owned by 4 colleges in this area and because it is available in our catalog you can check it out through our reserve system. This is one of the advantages of the LCLC Consortium, we are able to provide access to titles that the library system does not own. The other way we do this is through Interlibrary Loan."
Ms. Bigelow was then informed that it was believed that The Torch of Freedom and Zweig's Balzac were both withdrawn recently as part of the weeding program, regardless of the last checkout dates. Again it was pointed out that there were two records on Balzac. The records for both titles were marked "KCPL MAIN LIBRARY STACKS", not "KCPL MAIN LIBRARY CIRCULATION", meaning that they were in the basement and were therefore unavailable to the general public for browsing, hence less likely to be checked out, thus making the official rationale for withdrawing books on the basis of lack of demand as indicated by frequency of being checked out by the public, who does not have access to almost 70% of the collection, is irrational. The consortium helps, yet immediate browsing is essential to broadening the education of the general public as well as the researchers who are pulling one title and happen to see others on the shelf.
"I rechecked the catalog and found the second Balzac listing," Ms. Bigelow responded. "I had checked under Author the first time where it did not show up under the separate title listing. I have checked the DRA record. No transactions were ever recorded for this title. I cannot tell from the record whether or not it was withdrawn via inventory or weeding."
Based on the official responses of the Kansas City Library, the following conclusions can be reasonably made. The Kansas City Public Library is not able to account to the public for its most important asset, the library collection itself. And the quality of that collection has not been attended too via a "weeding" process for thirty years. The inability to account for the quantity and quality of public property should not be blamed on inadequate automated systems but should be attributed to the human mismanagement of the library systems. After all, manual systems were successfully used to account for inventories and the like long before automated systems were installed; and, no competent business would long stand for the inadequacies openly admitted to by the Library spokesperson.
In the absence of sufficient information to make a competent judgment on collection quality, interested parties are left to their subjective prejudices, about which they no doubt feel strongly. The public is basically being asked to trust in their librarians, to take their word for it, couched in dozens of pages of professional jargon, that the best collection possible is being provided to the public, period. The public gets what it deserves. Nowadays it deserves more and more recreational materials, more circus and less wholesome bread for the mind. However that may be, dedicated readers should make it their business to ask their devoted librarians a few pointed questions about the fare offered for public enlightenment.