WaPo's coverage and take on the Library trustees meeting on September 11, 2013

Tom Jackman reported on the trustees meeting:

Fairfax library board suspends strategic plan pending input from public, employees

At the George Mason Regional Library in Annandale, more than 200 people turned out Wednesday night to hear the Fairfax County Public Library Board of Trustees decide to suspend consideration of a controversial “strategic plan” for the library system. (Tom Jackman/The Washington Post)

As an overflow crowd of more than 200 watched, the Fairfax County library’s Board of Trustees on Wednesday night voted to suspend implementing the proposed “Strategic Plan” for the library system, pending more outreach to patrons and employees who felt left out of the process of preparing for the library’s future. . .

. . .  The audience, including a group watching outside the George Mason Regional Library in Annandale’s meeting room on a hallway video monitor, applauded as the board approved (Trustees Board Chairman) Jasper’s motion to suspend consideration of the plan, which was submitted by library Director Sam Clay. Clay said he worked with branch managers and staff to devise the plan, though some disagreed with that, and Clay acknowledged he perhaps had not gotten enough public input. . .

Five members of the public spoke to the board before their vote, all urging them to put the proposed plan on hold. Kathy Kaplan of the Fairfax County Federation of Citizens Associations told the board, “Libraries are sacred space. Books are sacred vehicles that transmit our culture. You are the trustees of the library. You have a sacred trust to protect the libraries for the people of Fairfax County.” Mary Zimmerman, president of the Friends of the George Mason library and head of the group’s huge book sale for 34 years, said, “I really urge you strongly to reconsider the [strategic] plan because it will not serve the citizens of Fairfax County.”

Click here for the rest of Jackman's article. 

WaPo columnist Petula Dvorak had this to say about the meeting:

In Fairfax County, protests over dumping of library books could not be hushed

The parking lot was jammed, cars snaking up along the road and into the neighborhood.
The meeting room in Annandale was packed, with a satellite location for the overflow audience.

Reducing librarians, moving to floating collection part of plan to modernize public library.

Two police officers in body armor stood guard.

This mob at George Mason Regional Library could get unruly, I guess. That’s what happens when you toss 250,000 books into trash bins.

The Fairfax County Library Board of Trustees got a much deserved earful Wednesday night from patrons outraged that the system’s road to modernization included offloading surplus books like garbage.

When one of the wealthiest counties in the nation trashes a quarter million books, that’s nothing but arrogance and laziness. Smaller libraries, veterans hospitals, prisons, homeless shelters and underfunded schools could all use those books. In fact, there are plenty of people in Fairfax who could use those unwanted tomes. . .

Besides trashing books that Fairfax libraries don’t have room for — they used to give most of those excess books to the Friends of Library groups that either sell them or donate them to needier groups — they were planning huge cuts in staff and eliminating the requirement that their librarians have masters in library science degrees.

Aha. Now we get another visual, discarding librarians like those books. . . .

Click here to read the rest of Dvorak's column.