Public Comment

New: Open Letter to the Berkeley Board of Library Trustees

Helen Rippier Wheeler
Wednesday October 07, 2015 - 10:54:00 AM

I am a long-time Berkeley resident and card-carrying library user.

My latest (2013) book publication is not in the BPL collection, although my 1997 Women & Aging; a Guide to The Literature has apparently survived. I have served on the Berkeley Housing Authority and as a North Berkeley Senior Center volunteer, and I was a founding member of Save Section 8.

My qualifications to impose the following counsel include: BA Barnard College (Foreign Areas Studies: Latin America, Spanish); MA University of Chicago (human development); MS and doctorate, Columbia University (library information science and media). Prior to receipt of the doctorate, I was employed in library management. Following receipt of the doctorate, I began to teach at graduate and undergraduate levels. I was a presidential appointee to the American Library Association's Committees on the Status of Women and on International Relations; I was elected to Council (the ALA governing body) by membership. You may not consider this an expression of interest in serving on a BPL Director of Library Services S&S Committee.

I disagree with a previous Library Director who declared that a library board is no place for a professional librarian! On a Director search and screen committee-yes! Community representation is essential in both cases. I have made 3 attempts to ascertain the "official" version of who/what constituted the [Jeff Scott] Search & Screen Committee, if indeed there was one, leading to the cover-up.

An immediate independent investigation is essential to the restoration of public trust. Complete transparency into what happened, when and who were/was responsible. The investigation needs to be completely independent of current management, who worked with the former director. Public desk librarians must be returned to their book selection, budgeting, and weeding duties and responsibilities; 34 specialist librarian voices reflect better Berkeley's diversity than managers plus 4 helpers! The Moratorium on Weeding cannot be lifted until the 34 librarians are returned to their selection and weeding tasks, which are components of affirmatively managed collection development and maintenance. An affirmatively managed library director search & screen process is essential to the restoration of public trust, i.e. to restoration of a Berkeley PUBLIC library. The Library Board, which is appointive, should have at least one professional librarian on it. 

This Library Director recruitment process should be managed not by a City functionary, but by an independent person with relevant training and experience. (I am not referring here to an expensive outside consultant.) A jargon-free position description should be widely circulated in a variety of media, soliciting applications, nominations and self-nominations. 

It should include: 

  • a reasonable closing date
  • some level of salary information (e.g. a range)
  • minimum education and professional experience qualifications, to include at least one graduate degree in library-information science-management from an accredited 'library school'
  • desirable qualifications
  • commitment to nondiscriminatory affirmative action