Downtown Kansas City Journal
downtownkansascity.blogspot.com

May 8, 2004

David King
Central Library
Kansas City Public Library

Subject: Collection Accountability

Dear Mr. King:

I have not heard back from you in regards to my responses to the several contentions you put forward in your April 30 communication, wherein you proposed to correct an article that I had published about my research into the book collection because, as you said, my claims "about the library don't like up with actual facts."

As a service to the reading public, I have taken a few minutes to summarize our recent exchange.  As I said in my last two emails, I have not had time to work to up a presentable "interview" from your communication - but your important comments still deserve airing. I have archived your communication for further reference and I may take up some of your other remarks elsewhere. 

I asserted - in the article you criticized - that Deputy Director Theresa Bigelow denied that the book collection had been downsized to fit the new space in the renovated bank building on Baltimore Street, and she also denied that the collection had been dumbed down to suit the mentality of downtown Kansas Citians. Both of those claims were made to me by a long-time member of the library staff, one who was admittedly fearful of the "top-down, intimidating management." Despite her denial, Ms. Bigelow was allegedly unable to prove her denial with a simple before-and-after statement of facts, which I had repeatedly asked both her and Dorothy Elliot for by telephone and email.

In fine, Ms. Bigelow implied that the staff was unable to account for the library's most important public property, the collection itself, because of the library's inadequate information systems.

You responded, "Not true. It's as simple as running a report on items removed from the automation system."

Mr. King, you did not provide me or offer to provide me with any report(s) to support your claim. In any case, I responded to you that, if your statement was true, then I believed Ms. Bigelow had been lying to me. I noted that Director Joe Green was a party to the communications between Ms. Bigelow and myself, and that I had run the interview past both of them several times; no denial was made to my report that the collection could not be accounted for because of faulty sytems.

I also said that Ms. Bigelow could or would not provide a list of books purged over the last year, to which you replied:

"Would not. The library keeps good records (proved by successful twice a year audits, among other things)."

I stated again, that if that were the case, then Ms. Bigelow had lied to me. I was led to believe, despite several requests, that no periodic statements, as would be provided by any legitimate bookkeeping system whether automated or not, could be made.

In my published report on the matter, I stated, "A thirty-minute cursory examination of the database uncovered several discrepancies of the kind that would shed light on the number of books removed from the stacks during the last purge if only the database were queried."

You replied: "What in the world are you talking about? The only thing you'd be able to access from the "database"- I'm assuming you mean the library catalog - are books and other stuff that can actually be looked at or checked out. There's simply no way to do a comparison of books before and after weeding by using the library catalog system (the public side of it, anyway)."

And I responded to you as follows: "As I have previously reported, a thirty minute query at random uncovered several items listed that were not available anywhere, not upstairs, not in the stacks, not in the consortium. The items were withdrawn, weeded, winnnowed, stolen, whatever. I asked for a list of all such items, which could be performed with a rather simple query command. I received evasive answers along with two false answers as to the missing items; the records I had referred to had been purged, and no list was made available."

In other words, I believed that at least a partial list of items withdrawn but not yet purged from the database could have been reported. I hate to be pernickety about it, but I think the collection is public property, and I suspect that, not only have books been "lost,"  but many books have been stolen due to the negligence of the staff. As for "weeding", Ms. Bigelow, interestingly enough,  reported that the collection had not been weeded for thirty years.

In addition to my prior statements, I want to add that I have on frequent occasions, including today, found items listed in the catalogue that were neither checked out or on the shelves. In conversations with cooperative members of the library staff - many members of the staff on the floors are forthright and helpful - they have noted what everyone knows, that besides withdrawals due to weeding, a great deal of outright theft was going on at the old library. Indeed, I personally raised the alarm on my third visit to the old library, that individuals, some of whom were not U.S. citizens, had access to multiple library cards and account numbers, apparently provided by the itinerant population, and the so-called "entrepreneurs" - library drug dealers.

As I reported elsewhere, my warnings fell on deaf ears for some time before someone finally looked into them - I was turned away when I went upstairs to report an ongoing violation to adminstration. I was told that I would have to call and make an appointment with the Deputy Director, since she was not in. And no, nobody would write down the information or look into the violation ongoing downstairs.

But that of course is water under the bridge. Or at least I hope so. I fear that not only the collection but that the staff as well should have been properly  weeded prior to the move into new quarters, lest bad habits work their old ruin at the new facility. I understand that you are an expert in your field, one who is involved in training, therefore I appreciate your interest in getting the facts straight, including the fact that, as you succinctly stated, "Books are not the library's most important property anymore."

I trust that my clarification of the facts will be useful to you.

Yours in truth,

David Arthur Walters
Independent Journalist 

cc: Open Letter