Boston PL's Margolis Won't See Contract Renewed
Lynn Blumenstein & Norman Oder -- Library Journal, 11/09/2007
Bernard Margolis, president of the Boston Public Library (BPL) for the past ten years, has a national profile, but he won’t have his contract renewed when the library’s Board of Trustees meets on November 13, according to the Boston Globe. Margolis’s contract expires June 30, 2008, and Mayor Thomas Menino’s spokesperson Dot Joyce told the newspaper that “it’s the right time for… a fresh approach.” Board president Jeffrey Rudman told the Globe, "This library is going to focus on its branches as it has never, ever focused on its branches before." Margolis was not available for comment, but some supporters have started a letter-writing campaign..The Boston Phoenix wondered, in an editorial headlined Unpleasantness at the BPL, “Why would the library’s trustees give the boot to a leader who has proved to be a triple-threat talent, accommodating tradition, tackling present-day issues, and positioning a service-oriented institution for the future?” The mayor just doesn’t like Margolis, the newspaper said, suggesting that the director—better at policy than politics—had been protected by some powerful library trustees, now either departed or with their powers waning.
Menino has appointed all nine members of the board. Margolis clashed with the mayor over computer filters early in his career at BPL, eventually agreeing to install software on terminals available to minors. Also, a 2006 study commissioned by BPL and the City of Boston reported that BPL was behind on circulation compared with peer systems. BPL has opened only one new branch in six years and two in the last 20 years. Simmons College academic Margaret Bush told the Globe that “[t]he branch libraries here are much more thinly staffed than in a lot of other metropolitan libraries,” with less programming. The Phoenix called such reports “a campaign of disinformation,” noting that Margolis “has had to fight City Hall every step of the way” in an effort to expand branch hours and services.
Among the highlights of Margolis’s tenure is the creation of the Boston Library Consortium, a major partnership with the Open Content Alliance to build a freely accessible library of digital materials from 19 members, all academic libraries other than BPL. The library also has boosted children’s services, burnished the Copley Square central library, and secured $10 million to endow the Leventhal Map Center.
The Phoenix editorialized that it’s the trustees’ job “to insulate the library from the vagaries of political life. Let us hope that in the future they are up to the task.” In an editorial, the Globe offered “praise for Margolis's stewardship as well as discussion of a bold plan for the library system's future,”saying the new leader should be “reaching into the neighborhoods by energizing the library's 27 branches.
