Judging Book Covers
I learned as a child from a book not to judge a book by its cover. That platitude came to mind as I approached Kansas City's magnificent new library. Kansas Citians certainly can be proud of the building. My concern has always been more with the contents of the library than with the elegance of its housing. Still, I am mighty glad about the renovated neo-classical bank building, and once again I thank Jonathan Kemper for making it happen.
I have no doubt whatsoever that I will barely notice the elegant library building after awhile. I am from Paradise. Paradise can be boring if not hell. That is precisely why I like to curl up with an excellent book and resort to dreams and ideals, then write a few books myself.
I could care less about the cover of a book, and some of the best ones are dilapidated. The contents of a book is what counts - prior to the invention of advanced printing methods, the purchase price of a single book carefully copied and illustrated could buy a house instead.
That is not to say that I do not care for architecture. In fact, as I viewed the library from across the bus stop across the street, something jarred my eye when I glanced over at the building housing the library. It stood out from the blue sky above and the buildings on each side, but the bottom of the frame, the raw cement sidewalk in front of the library, certainly was not what the front of the building deserved after $50 million of attention.
A Yiddish word came to mind - schlock. I was surprised that a gentleman of taste like Jonathan Kemper, whose office is across the street from "Jonathan's building" (the new library), missed that important detail. Perhaps he will have the sidewalk fixed, darken it up, or replace it with the right sort of material.
I was greeted by Dorothy Elliot, the library's deputy when I entered the new building. I was surprised because I had never met her in the public area of the old library. She courteously came outside with me, where I brought the pedestrian detail to her attention. She seemed vaguely interested in my observation about that physical aspect, although she did not seem to share my pedestrian viewpoint. In any case, taste is subjective. And who am I? Just a nobody drifting through the Compassion Zone.
An Absurd Library Policy
Imagine that you are John Q. Public, the owner of the downtown Kansas City Public Library. Imagine that you have hired and placed your trust in a library board, the chosen director and his deputies to manage your library. Now imagine that the library got so crowded people had difficulty getting access to the contents; in fact, a line formed daily out front. Therefore the director consulted with the board. A decision was made: library usage would be limited to 90 minutes per day per patron. You had been out of town, on a biography contract in Europe, and, when you returned, you went over to your library to do some research. There was no line at the front door. Only one-third of the library was occupied with patrons; most of them were looking a pictures of half-nude women in fashion magazines, playing cards, and listening to music. Fine, there was nobody in your favorite areas, philosophy, psychology, history, and so on. But at the end of ninety minutes, you are given five minutes to get out of the library - your turn was up.
How absurd! you thought, and spoke to the librarians. All but one of your library employees defended the policy, which they attributed to the director and his deputies. Two librarians suggested that you go several miles to library branches where you could have at least three hours of access to the library system. The one librarian who agreed with you identified herself as an academic, and said that the policy was indeed absurd, that it had been discussed at several meetings, but nothing had been done because a "right balance" had to be maintained.
Wherefore on numerous occasions over a period of the next six months, you complained of the absurd policy to a prominent member of the board of trustees, to the director, and to his deputies. All to no avail. In fact, the prominent trustee, the director and his deputies, did not bother to respond to your written complaints at all. One of the chief deputies simply turned her back on you and walked away when you brought the matter to her attention, which reminded you of the typical behavior of your prominent library trustee. That was the last straw. You shook up the board and had the director and his deputies fired, then revitalized the library with better management.
The above situation is directly analogous to the computer usage policy of the downtown Kansas City Library. Patrons of the library including cosmopolitan writers and serious researches are only allowed 90-minutes access to the computers even when seventy-five percent of them are not in use. The computers have an automatic scheduling program which can be programmed to allow users to stay on the computers as long as they like unless someone with less time used gets in line, in which case the current user will be automatically booted in a few minutes, and can go to the back of the line if he so chooses.
I have complained to the director and his deputies on numerous occasions without any response at all. I will continue to complain in hopes that some action will be taken.
That absurd computer access policy is not the only absurdity that has been transferred from the old to the new building. In my opinion the absurd computer access policy and the wholly inadequate response to patrons who have complained about it is indicative of an maladministrative mentality which should be revitalized immediately with something more appropriate to the newly renovated library building.
New Library Security
The security at the new downtown Kansas City Public Library is excellent. Although the same old rules are supposed to apply to the new facility, the difference between old and new is the difference between night and day, because the rules are actually applied at the new location, which is just off 10th and Baltimore.
The reason the house rules were not applied before was due to maladministration. Staff members on the floors were actually reprimanded by supervision upstairs for trying to enforce the house rules - that in itself was a high misdemeanor. The patrons who once used the old library for its intended purposes were frightened away. Neither had the collection been properly attended to: a library spokesperson admitted in writing that the administration could not account for the quantity or the quality of the public property - the collection - over time. Calls for the resignation of top management and supervision have been ignored.
But security is good now, thanks to private benefactors. They were not about to put up $50.3 million to turn the old First National Bank into a fancier dump for disturbers of the peace, vagrants, dope dealers, stalkers and other perverts to hang out in. At their behest, The Downtown Community Improvement District organization has placed plenty of its Public Safety Ambassadors around and inside of the new library. Big brother is watching you for your own good, and people who are up to no good are not welcome. The enforcement of the rule against public display of pornography has opened up more computers for decent usage. Masturbation is not tolerated. Neither are offensive smells. Thieves have been apprehended. The stalker with the ski cap and gloves has been warned two or three times. Screaming matches and loud conversations have been curbed. Security will radio the cops if need be, and one will come right over.
No action has yet been taken on my suggestion that an ordinance be passed that would allow library security to issue the equivalent of temporary restraining orders to reduce the number of repeat offenders by jailing those who return.
Except for computer usage, the rules are reasonable and are uniformly and equally applied. Homeless and poor people are welcome at the library. Some of the homeless and impoverished regulars from the old library have been invited in by the Ambassadors to read and to use the computers. However, not many of the poor and homeless have used the new library because, when they look in the front door, they cannot see any tables or chairs in the imposing old bank lobby. In that respect, the entrance is not "customer friendly," or "inviting," although people are greeted in a friendly manner at the door. Readers will be directed to the elegant reading room on the third floor.
Cynics expect the costly new library to be eventually sold to the taxpayers and taken over again by the vagrant and criminal population. But for now library patrons feel safe at the new location. Those who are disturbed by bad conduct may report the disturbance to the Ambassadors for immediate handling. For their own safety, patrons should not personally intervene: the downtown area is a main concourse between the rotating doors of prisons and jails. Patrons should behave as the would in any public area, attending to their personal property and being especially alert around public restrooms.
Numbers count. The more patrons who visit and regularly use the library, the better it will be for everyone.
Library Discrimination
Here we go, I thought, it's Groundhog Day again! My ninety-minute computer access allotment was up. Dammit! I was being booted off the computer just as I was typing out quotes from two popular books. Two historians had given contrary versions of the facts appertaining to President Hoover's crackdown on the Bonus Army. I was certain Kansas Citians would be eager to know the truth about Hoover and historians lest they be misled and confused by the most popular books in their library. Further research would be required for my article. A good cosmopolitan library enables researcher to get to the facts if not the true interpretation of those facts. The Internet can be a good tool to that end.
But here I go again, I am being booted off the downtown Kansas City Library because the dictators of library policy mandate that usage be limited to ninety-minutes per patron, and to that there will be no exceptions. Yet, as absurd as this might seem, I know for a fact that favors have been given by administrators. And enterprising people who have managed to get around the rules through possession of several library cards, or the code numbers and passwords for same.
As is usual, this Groundhog Day of mine did not include an administrative favor to shut me up and keep me busy writing out quotes and books, but it did include an entrepreneur, a newcomer from Las Vegas, who was using the computer next to me for over two hours. Disgruntled as usual by the absurd computer access in the first place - eight other computers were sitting idle at the time - I took up the problem (euphemism: issue) with a librarian at one of the desks.
"I have noticed again and again, for instance just now, that other people are getting more than ninety-minutes on the computers, but I just got booted off after ninety minutes. Will you please check my card and factually answer this question, Am I being discriminated against?"
The fellow courteously informed me that all patrons are treated equally. I insisted that he scan the bar code on my card and look at my file to be sure that I am not being discriminated against by means of some special coding. He kindly complied, and assured me that there was no peculiarity in my file, that I was being treated like all other patrons.
I confess that I was disappointed to hear that no exception had been made either against or for me, that I was the equal of all other patrons. It seemed that, by some quirk of fate or matter of chance, I had at last fit in somewhere, and had become just another nobody. Now I am a bit neurotic, but I am not psychotic, therefore I understood very well from the facts that I had no cause for delusions of grandeur or of persecution in respect to my library card. Neither do I have any cause so far to expect anyone in Kansas City to do me a favor. Nevertheless I will press on as a nobody drifting through Kansas City's Compassion Zone because I believe some of them will eventually appreciate my work at least as much as my fans in other parts of the world do.
Backsided at the New Library
As I have previously noted, library deputy Dorothy Elliot was obliging when I asked her to consider the sidewalk outside of the new library, and went outside with me to stare at the stark gray cement. However, when we came back inside, she did not want discuss the absurd computer access policy set in stone by the library administration - she has heard it all before, I supposed, and the subject must bore her.
Not put off by the brush off on that particular subject, I praised the handsome physique of the library building. As a matter of fact, I was particularly impressed by the bright new children's area, an experience that might attract them to the library for many years to come. I opined that the library would serve the community well for a century, at which point it might be converted into a bank.
Then I turned to the contents, and remarked that the collection should be more cosmopolitan than it is. I said that I had had some difficulty finding a good blend of resources in some fields, such as political science and philosophy, during the course of my studies at the library. Ms. Elliot gave the oft-repeated response when anyone questions the quality of the collection:
"This is not a research library," she averred.
I responded that I was speaking of certain good works and great books that should be in any cosmopolitan library; for instance, I was seeking certain sources on my current subject of inquiry, the absurd ideological prejudice of the bourgeoisie. None of the books were available at the downtown Kansas City Library; twenty percent of them were not even available through the library's university consortium. Eager to make my point, that at least half of the books should be available at a good cosmopolitan library, I reached into my briefcase and proceeded to pull photocopies of excerpts from books which I had found on the shelves of a library in another state, none of which were at her library. Before I could show them to her, the deputy director turned her back on me and walked away.
Cosmopolitan Libraries
We certainly do need a cosmopolitan library in downtown Kansas City. With a cosmopolitan library in place, the metropolis might eventually become a cosmopolis.
According to a report by Star reporter Kevin Collison, Robert M. Ardy, one of the nation's top site-selection experts, said, "Kansas City is not a cosmopolitan area."
Kansas City's civic leaders like to brag about the metropolitan area's skilled, educated, and productive work force. However, Mr. Ardy says that an attractive work force must also be cosmopolitan and creative.
Mr. Ardy mentioned other attributes, such as "flexible, multiskilled, and "cooperative." That is to say that obedient workers who work together well are in demand as usual. As for multiskilled workers, we suppose that he would have the skills performed one at a time, since it is difficult to lay out a new spread sheet while making a pair of ballet point shoes - psychological studies indicate that multitasking actually makes workers stupid.
Cosmopolitanism emphases the fact that we are all human beings regardless of our place of residence. Cosmopolitanism was a fundamental humanist attribute of both the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, with its emphasis on human reason instead of traditional arbitrary authority. In ancient times, enlightened persons were citizens of the Cosmos regardless of their location on the mundane globe. And now the neo-classical architecture of the new downtown Kansas City Library gives tribute to the Renaissance, and, hopefully, to the Enlightenment.
The greatest cosmopolitan man of letters and humanist of the Renaissance period was Desiderius Erasmus, best known for his tribute to Lady Folly, The Praise of Folly. That is why I recommended to Jonathan Kemper, the modern Medici and banker who made the new library-bank happen, that Erasmus' book title be on one of the book spines displayed outside of the library. I went to considerable creative length, supporting my suggestion with numerous essays.
After giving thanks to Mr. Kemper for the new library, my foolish arguments proceeded with the observation that Mr. Kemper was a fool to make it happen. Since I received no response whatsoever to my thanks or to my argument, I began to believe that Mr. Kemper is not the cosmopolitan fool that I thought him to be, and suspected that he might be just another crafty civic leader who uses hollow sentiments to exploit the public behind the scenes.
I understand that a man who lives in a tub in the Compassion Zone and who claims to be a citizen of the cosmos, a man called Diogenes, showed up at the library at high noon with a flashlight yesterday. He was seeking a wise man, but he was expelled for spitting in Mr. Kemper's face before he could complete his search.
"There was nowhere else to spit," he said, gesturing at the elegant surround.
