Editorial: Library Users Should Govern

The frustrations of local control are worth the trust it builds

John N. Berry III, Editor-in-Chief -- Library Journal, 2/1/2004

Comment
on this editorial

No change in governance structure will build citizen trust in libraries. Yes, the American system, as Saul Amdursky asserts (see "The Case for Consolidation," p. 38–40), is old and inefficient. In the hands of the wrong leaders and politicians, it is vulnerable to corruption, racism, and exploitation of the powerless. Amdursky is not the first library director to propose the independent library district as the solution to library woes. Such districts have strengthened small rural libraries and brought modern management and systems to others.

Independent districts have sometimes replaced the local model in more traditional places, a model deeply rooted in American distrust of government. Because of the influence of special interests, Americans are wary of government and therefore reluctant to fork over their hard-earned dollars in taxes. An honest and valid distrust results, often prompting local suspicion of efforts to create larger units of government, including library systems.

Such mistrust is no surprise, as Rick Ashton has found in trying to establish a library district for the Denver Public Library. And as any New Englander can tell you, Yankees see local control as their only protection against government growing too big to handle. In California, direct citizen oversight of government meant using the ballot to express more faith in show biz talent than in professional politicians.

Libraries have nearly always avoided the distrust that greets the rest of government. There have been rare reports of corrupt librarians and trustees, but libraries stand out as the least corrupt unit of administration in America at any level. Local control, a "formula for mediocrity," as Amdursky puts it, has meant efficient, accountable libraries trusted by the people they serve no matter which model of authority they practice.

While libraries that have adopted the Amdursky model—the independent taxing district—have done well financially, many libraries that are departments of municipal, county, or even state governments have done equally well or better. The strength of library support is hardly a function of the model of governance.

There's a better strategy: finding another revenue source to replace the property tax base. In Ohio, library support increased dramatically when the state decided to dedicate a portion of income tax to library service. There was no change in governance. In Chicago and San Diego, library supporters got citizens to consider library support a percentage of the cost of all government—and it paid off.

The unique thing about library politics under the ancient if flawed model is that libraries are more efficient than nearly every other municipal service; they serve a large majority of the people on a regular and frequent basis for less that two percent of the cost of running the government. Public libraries flourish or suffer under a host of structures, and while the independent taxing district is popular now, it is no panacea. It will be as unacceptable to New Englanders, with their traditions of direct local sovereignty, as it will be to Californians, with their penchant for direct democracy.

Rather than advocating bigger government units, librarians should adopt a better mantra: fair taxation. In a society with such broad and deep experience with the influence of special interests on big government, we can't expect broad citizen support for making libraries more remote. It is better to suffer local regulation than to attempt to move libraries further away from control by the people who use and pay for them.

John N. Berry III, Editor-in-Chief, jberry@reedbusiness.com