New Orleans Public Library Announces Ambitious Master Plan
Norman Oder -- Library Journal, 3/18/2008
- $277 million for construction
- Per capita support would double
- First, a "jazz" branch
Leaders of the long under-resourced New Orleans Public Library (NOPL), devastated by the effects of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, aim to produce a “world-class library system” by 2030, following a major drive for capital and operating funds that would total $650 million. The Master Plan, Speaking Volumes for the Future, was announced today, along with a $10 million project to build a new “jazz” branch.
[Correction: LJ originally reported that a contribution from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation would help fully fund the branch. While the foundation is supporting interim libraries and NOPL's master plan, other private sources are being sought to complement public funds to complete the branch.]
The master plan cites the indigenous musical form as an inspiration for democratic values and authenticity. NOPL Board Chairman Irvin Mayfield, a jazz trumpeter, told LJ that the new branch, at the end of the Gentilly corridor, would not only draw on jazz values but include performance spaces and practice rooms to bring music into the library. It should open in two-and-a-half years. The plan includes prototypes for five prototype branches and estimates a near-doubling of library space per capita.
While NOPL’s budget was about $18.45 per capita in 2004, at the 16th percentile of peer libraries, the library’s per capita budget would be the equivalent (in current dollars) of $40.53 per capita, thus placing it in the upper quartile of its peers. Personnel costs would more than double to add service and hours for a population estimated by 2030 to remain 16% of pre-Katrina figures.
The plan estimates a capital budget of nearly $200 million in current dollars, or $277 million over time. Where to get the capital funds? Mayfield was optimistic, saying that federal and state funds had not been tapped, nor had local and national foundations. The city’s economy has been growing, and Mayfield said “we think we have justification to double the millage.”
One priority: a new Main Library to replace the aging current facility, especially “a new, secure, above-ground archival facility for the Louisiana Division,” currently housed below ground but spared flooding during Katrina. “Given the vulnerability of the collection,” the plan states, “it is imperative that construction begin as soon as possible but no later than 2010.”
The master plan was prepared by Meyer, Scherer & Rockcastle, Ltd. Library Architects and Interior Designers with Library Planning Associates, Inc. and E. Eean McNaughton Architects for the New Orleans Public Library Foundation. It was funded by the Gulf Coast Libraries Project of SOLINET, the Gates Foundation, and the NOPL Foundation.
