Library lovers win big: Fairfax libraries will stop tossing materials, drop changes that would have reduced staff, WaPo, November 19, 2013
The trustees of the Fairfax County
Public Library want to eliminate the process that led to the trashing
of hundreds of thousands of books and also throw out a controversial
plan to reduce the number of librarians and children’s services in
county branches, the trustee board’s chair said Tuesday.
The trustees also said they were not kept informed of the major
proposed changes in the library’s operations, by longtime library
director Sam Clay, and that they had learned of that new discard policy
through media reports. The trustees asked the Fairfax Board of
Supervisors to improve spending on library materials, which they said
fell from $6.33 per capita in 2000 to $2.11 per capita in 2011, far
below the U.S. average of $5.90.
Library Trustee chairman Willard O. Jasper gave the supervisors two reports
and a series of recommendations on calming the furor over the library’s
strategic reorganization. The controversy erupted in September after
Supervisor Linda Q. Smyth (D-Providence) discovered about 250,000 books discarded in two trash bins. The books were never offered to Friends of the Library groups for resale or donation.
The
supervisors voted Tuesday to implement the trustees’ recommendation and
asked the trustees to give them a timeline on Jan. 14. . . .
Click here for more details on this big win for Fairfax library lovers.
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