“One NYPL,” Many Questions

The New York Public Library (NYPL) is proceeding with a major reorganization, notably consolidating its long-divided Research Libraries and Branch Libraries under the “One NYPL” rubric, merging training and planning for one integrated library system (see News, LJ 10/1/07, p. 12). Yet insiders question how the move will affect the deployment of staff, the future of library facilities and service, and the balance between the library's two wings.

Internal documents shared by insiders offer preliminary responses that staffers say leave much unanswered. “Our goal is to avoid layoffs,” stated David Ferriero, Andrew W. Mellon Director of Libraries, in an internal blog entry October 9. “The reality is that as we go through this reorganization, some positions will be eliminated and new ones will be created.” He said that, between now and “early in 2008,” managers will be meeting with impacted staff. One goal: “promote staff initiative; level the bureaucracy.”

The changes are one reason NYPL placed a hold on new hiring in the previous three months, wrote Ferriero, who led the Research Libraries until Susan Kent, head of the Branch Libraries, resigned in May and the two positions were consolidated.

Carol Thomas, president of Local 1930, the NYPL Guild, said that union members were concerned that NYPL was not using the $20 million recently provided by the city council to extend hours and to hire additional staff. “They started to hire, but about a month after that, they stopped,” she told LJ. “They said, 'We're looking at it and may not need as much as staff.'”

A library insider questioned whether job descriptions would be consolidated so that NYPL would have fewer subject and age-level specialists. Library spokesman Herb Scher told LJ that the staffing model will change, but the library was not ready to comment “on potential or rumored developments.”

A pilot project has begun at the Bronx Library Center (BLC), which is open 12 hours a day, seven days a week. The BLC serves as a hub for 11 neighborhood branches, which have more autonomy in scheduling staff and organizing programs. “We're trying to maximize the amount of time staff is doing public service,” including community outreach, chief librarian Michael Alvarez told LJ.

The pilot is not without bumps. Thomas said that BLC has been shortstaffed. Alvarez said that the number of clerical staff was halved to seven or eight upon the start of the pilot, given that the delivery of fully processed materials was presumed to have reduced back-office work. However, two part-time workers were brought back, and two more were to have been added November 1, mainly, Alvarez said, because of heavy patron usage.

The union has protested that staffers were working up to four consecutive hours at the public service desk, a violation of the contract, and that staff working nights and weekends are being offered comp time but not overtime,

A new “site manager” position is emerging, which insiders say may not require an LIS degree. Scher wouldn't confirm that, but said, “It's going to be a different job than any one that exists” and would include administrative and operational tasks.

Asked if NYPL would sell or close buildings, Ferriero explained in the document that managers were frustrated that they could not yet publicly discuss the work of a facilities committee. “We are in some delicate discussions with some key funders, and until those are resolved, we cannot discuss it.”

“We know there are many rumors,” he added. Indeed, the insider and Thomas both identified as candidates for closing two of the five units of the Branch Libraries' midtown “Central Library”: the Donnell Library Center and the dowdy Mid-Manhattan Library, which sits across Fifth Avenue from the iconic Humanities and Social Science Library of the Research Libraries.

The sale of buildings and potential consolidation of functions raise questions about the balance between the Research Libraries, which rely significantly on private funding, and the Branch Libraries, which rely mainly on public support. Would a better central library emerge, or would circulating collections be moved somewhere within the Research Libraries?

“I think staff are very nervous, particularly those at managerial level, as well as those at Mid-Manhattan,” commented the insider. A new staff chart shows significant changes, with no high-level deputies assigned only to the branch system.

NYPL also is apparently contemplating changes to endowed positions, divisions, and collections—a potentially touchy issue, depending on the strictures with which the endowments were granted. “It is likely we will have to go back to individual donors to inform them of changes,” Ferriero said in the document.

New units will aim to provide overall strategies throughout the organization, including reference and research services; education, programming, and exhibitions; and collections and circulation operations, a unit that combines the branch and research technical services operations.

Many efficiencies could be achieved, commented another insider, but the effort to make it “one library” may threaten the branches. Scher said that NYPL's goal, rather, “is to create an integrated library system, which has neighborhood branches, hub libraries, and research libraries.”