Chicago, ALA 2005: You Get What You Pay For

LJ visits three Chicago-area libraries and finds that equity is a hard goal to reach when resources and political clout vary widely

By Norman Oder -- Library Journal, 6/1/2005

Robbins Struggles

Just below Chicago's far southwest border, the hamlet of Robbins, a nearly all-black community built in the 1890s by a speculator for families rebuffed by racism, has a rich history and a troubled present.

While Robbins has a middle-class zone of handsome homes, the town is punctuated by boarded-up houses and storefront churches, with a declining population of 6500. The William Leonard Public Library District, named for the man who went door-to-door to establish a dedicated funding source in 1974, sits on a residential street, in a pleasant pink concrete building with a skylight. An oasis especially for kids and teens, it has busy computers and a multipurpose room but little new on the shelves. But library funding has been squeezed by the closing of an oil refinery on the town's outskirts that once contributed about one-third of its tax revenue.

The annual budget has declined from $221,000 in 2002 to about $150,000 today. Staff salaries have been frozen for three years. The library gets ILL requests for its films and children's books with African American themes, but its materials budget stretches just to meet state reference standards. In a community where only 20 percent of residents have access to the web at home, the first hour of Internet use each day is free, but patrons must pay $1 an hour after that.

Inching Back

Last year, weekly hours were cut from 40 to 36, and the library lost Saturday service. Earlier this year, the schedule was trimmed again to 24 hours. A fundraiser brought in $5000, and, combined with tax receipts—never a guarantee in a poor community—the library was able to restore 36-hour service. Some $1000 for new books—the first in years—will be aimed at children and teens.

Priscilla Coatney, a retired educator serving as interim administrator for a token stipend, has recruited former residents and other contacts to present children's programs. The Metropolitan Library System, which serves all libraries in the south and west of Chicago, has helped the library gain a $4800 summer reading grant. Via ILL, the library has gotten enough copies of The Reallionaire, the story of a teenage entrepreneur from Chicago's inner city, for the teen book club's first meeting.

Still, Robbins's tax base has withered. One potential savior, a garbage incinerator, opened in the early 1990s but closed in 2000 after criticism of its environmental record. For now, Coatney has sought help from the Chicago area's best-known proponent of reading: "I'm waiting for Oprah."

Library service in America reflects local support—with the notable exception of Ohio, where state funding predominates. Communities with richer tax bases spend more on libraries—and generally offer more services. The American Library Association is meeting in Chicago, so LJ visited the area to explore information equity—much as the education community is looking at equity in school funding. We saw two libraries in similarly sized neighboring towns, plus a smaller third library farther away. The differences between what these libraries can offer reflect both the disparate levels of their resources and the contrasting political realities of their communities.

Two towns

Go due west from the Chicago Loop, cross the border from the hardscrabble Austin neighborhood, and Oak Park beckons. Noted as the home of Ernest Hemingway and Frank Lloyd Wright, with the world's largest collection of Wright houses, Oak Park is a prosperous and determinedly multiracial place; it pioneered open housing laws ahead of Congress and has a black population of 22 percent.

At Oak Park's western border, Lake Street begins with a Borders bookstore and soon features the independent Barbara's Bookstore. In the town center, across from Wright's masterpiece Unity Temple, is the Oak Park Public Library (OPPL), a handsome modern structure—deliberately eschewing Wright's much-copied Prairie style—clad in rough limestone and copper shingles. At night, the third floor reading room is a luminescent beacon over Scoville Park. The building opened in October 2003, the product of a $30 million referendum that also paid for renovations to one of two small branches. The branches insure unusually comprehensive service to this community, less than five miles square.

Go south from Oak Park's plainer southern section to Berwyn, a blue-collar town of modest bungalows and apartments, which offers per capita library support slightly below the national average. Berwyn most resembles its neighbor to the east, Cicero—which abuts Chicago—as both are historically white ethnic enclaves with a recent Hispanic influx (now 38 percent of the population in Berwyn). Some Oak Parkers, weary of high taxes and costly housing, have sought a more affordable lifestyle in Berwyn.

Like Oak Park, Berwyn offers a rail connection for Chicago commuters, but it's more oriented to driving. On West Harlem Avenue, the border of Oak Park and Berwyn, Berwyn's most conspicuous features are its malls. Near Berwyn's southern border, a concrete, six-sided building from 1974 is emblazoned Berwyn Public Library (BPL). Also named the Thomas G. Shaughnessy Center, after the mayor who helped the library get the building, it cost $1.75 million in 1994 (before renovations) and replaced two small branches. Across the street are a small strip-mall and a self-storage complex.

Juggling space

For a community its size, OPPL (www.oppl.org) has well above the average amount of library space, 104,000 square feet in its central facility, plus some 9,550 more in its branches. The new building offers modern furniture, spiffy signage, extra space, and frills enough to compete with retail and to serve as a community showpiece.

Berwyn PL (www.berwynlibrary.net) looks like a typical midsized library in terms of fixtures, signage, and graphics, though—as with the community ethos—it's notably clean. It offers 33,000 square feet, in a building that was originally home to the Czechoslovak Society of America museum, library, and archives, which moved. Though it's not the 54,000 square foot library that was defeated twice in referenda, the building offers program space, elevators, and conference rooms lacking in its predecessors. No showpiece, it is certainly a community resource—and its circulation, given the budget and space available, is healthy.

At OPPL, the Buzz Café, inside the foyer, opens before library hours. Table tent messages warn that seating is reserved for customers—the library attracts homeless people who bunk at Oak Park's floating shelters. There are several new book displays. Two large plasma screens advertise library events and recount OPPL's history. Small events screens grace each floor's elevator bank. There's a security desk and a checkout desk, but one must go upstairs or through a door to the children's area for reference help. Library managers are considering adding a roving reference staffer/greeter near the door.

At BPL, the Friends of the Library used to run a coffee shop in a small room to the right of the entrance, but it was open so infrequently that Director Bill Hensley turned the space into a work room for readers' advisory staff. Still, the library offers coffee at times in the periodicals room and food at the "Bring a Book to Breakfast" discussion group. The circulation and readers' advisory desks are a few steps from the entrance, and when LJ visited, a nearby cart offered books on the Pope.

OPPL's web site has dedicated pages for teens and kids—again unusual for a library this size. In the main library, a door on the first floor leads to a capacious children's area, with a porthole aquarium, quotes painted on the walls, and a separate room for story time. It lacks some Disneyesque flash, by intent. Berwyn's children's area is smaller, but BPL—unlike Oak Park—has a separate room for teens. A display promotes Harry Potter: the library will sell the upcoming Potter book to locals and stay open late that night. The Oak Park teen space, which announces itself with hip fixtures and furniture, might have been a separate space had library planners visited the Phoenix PL earlier, they acknowledge in a postoccupancy evaluation.

Both libraries pay close attention to best sellers—maintaining one copy for every three holds—purchased at OPPL, leased in BPL. Oak Park can afford to buy almost anything requested. In terms of interlibrary loan (ILL), BPL is a net lender, OPPL a net borrower; more requests would be made if Oak Park joined SWAN, the automation consortium involving most but not all of the members of the Metropolitan Library System. Oak Park upgraded its automation system on its own, so it didn't see the need to join.

And both libraries could use more space. In Oak Park, fiction and AV share the same desk—at the head of the stairs, as is the nonfiction desk on the next floor. In Berwyn, while fiction and youth services are on the first floor, nonfiction and databases are in the basement, a bit of a trek for new nonfiction browsers. AV gets a separate room on the second floor.

OPPL moved from a well-staffed facility half the size with no increase in staff or materials. "For years, we were buildingbound; now we're peoplebound," declares Director Ed Byers. With more money, he'd uncouple some desks.

Given the space limits in Berwyn, acquisitions require constant weeding. But Hensley and his crew are constrained not merely by space but the building's less-than-central location. With more money—and the library's applying for a grant—they'd establish a bookmobile to serve the northern segments of town, which once had a nearby branch. And while OPPL's layout is established, BPL's is in flux. After first managing some personnel challenges, Hensley plans to gather staff input on reorganizing library layout and services, so, for example, all adult materials can be found on the same floor.

Tech savvy

A new building in Oak Park means new technology; from the outside window at OPPL, the building's automated book return—its inner workings visible, including yellow caution stickers—is beloved by kids but considered an eyesore by some.

A couple of staffers work the circulation desk, even though OPPL has offered self-check since the new building opened, with all items tagged with RFID (radio frequency identification) chips. The system worked imperfectly, so the library stopped promoting it, and now only 25 percent of transactions are self-check (though more at the station near the holds shelf) and virtually none at the branches. The push will resume after OPPL adds a four-digit PIN to users' library cards. Why? "Part of the endless process of give and take in Oak Park," says Byers, and to foil potential card thieves intent on taking the full allotment of ten DVDs, ten audiobooks, 50 CDs, and 100 books.

On the third floor, home of nonfiction, periodicals, a technology center, and a computer lab, the reading room attracts patrons bringing laptops. At Oak Park, the CD listening stations—as at popular retail stores—are temporarily on the fritz; they interfere with the installation of wireless access. OPPL this month was to add downloadable audiobooks; Byers describes demand for audiobooks as "a bottomless pit."

Both OPPL and Berwyn offer wireless access; Berwyn's technology director Jim Frank installed it himself, for just $2500. He's also put streaming video of some library programs on the library web site and aims to add more. Berwyn has 25 public access computers, Oak Park 100. Neither offers real-time virtual reference, but both are considering instant messaging.

Political constraints

Libraries in Illinois can be district libraries with a separate taxing district, village libraries that are standalone entities, or city departments. Byers and his elected board have autonomy as a village library; they control OPPL's budget, as long as they stay under a millage ceiling established in 1992. A rise in property values fuels budget increases. The board rejected Internet filters. Board members run in nonpartisan elections, and the library web site includes their home phone numbers and email addresses. The library's Friends group raises some $40,000 a year for the summer reading program and other "frills."

The state supplies $1.25 per resident in per capita grants, plus equalization aid for nine library districts with low tax bases; it also supports consortia like the Metropolitan Library System that supply automation help, consulting services, and delivery of ILL materials, among other things.

OPPL once charged for all videos and still charges $1 for feature films. Rising property values should provide the boost to kill the fee, Byers predicts.

In Berwyn, Hensley has been encouraging his board to join the Friends group and help raise more money. The library is a city department, so the appointed board has less power. This year, the library saw $120,000 cut from its budget—and lost $72,000 in materials—by order of the city. The library filters the Internet by direction of the mayor, using the filtering service recommended by SWAN.

At BPL, the high-circulating AV collection has grown less popular since May 2004, when the board—seeing a new revenue source—decided to charge $1 per feature film. One rationale: Oak Park was already doing it. But circulation has plunged. The board will reevaluate the charge in another six months, but Hensley and his staff want it gone.

Also, the city claimed the revenue rather than let the library plow it back into materials. Clearly, the library-city relationship could improve. This year, Berwyn's public safety director and his deputies make well into the six figures, dwarfing the compensation of Hensley, who joined the library three years ago after a career in database work for utilities. In Oak Park, the six-figure salary for Byers—a veteran director who came from Reading, PA, in 1996—is, by contrast, a larger percentage of the salary earned by top town officials.

The presence of Dominican University's LIS school in nearby River Forest, says Hensley, "is a godsend," as several staffers study there. Dominican was helpful to OPPL as well. Deputy Director Jim Madigan, who arrived under the directorship of Carol Brey (now Carol Brey-Casiano, director of the El Paso PL, TX, and president of the American Library Association) was hired for his background in business and nonprofit management. While at OPPL, he acquired his library degree at Dominican. Berwyn has no deputy slot.

Inventive programming

Both libraries offer a plethora of programs for adults and kids, both book-related and civic, though Oak Park has more well-known authors and performances, like the "Improv Commandos." Berwyn offers occasional pieces of art in places like the meeting room and a temporary exhibit of smallish works from the Berwyn Art League on one floor. Signs advertise "Rent a Librarian"—a reservation for one-on-one service—an innovation for stolid seniors who might hesitate to take a computer class.

OPPL's new building has a museum vibe. An art gallery with track lighting features regular exhibitions. The permanent art collection—for which OPPL budgeted $50,000 and then raised over $100,000 more—features nationally known artists, including some locals like comics artist Chris Ware.

Surrounding OPPL's stairs, a three-story glass sleeve boasts etched quotes about reading and books. Some 1000 quotes, chosen by staff and community members from 500 submissions, grace the library; voluble Oak Parkers have weighed in with praise and also some criticism for more artistic than readable quotes. OPPL also offers an Art*o*mat— common at museums but installed at only one other library—a cigarette machine retrofitted to vend small pieces of art. There's a green roof, with plants and grasses, intended to reduce the climactic load on the community.

At OPPL, "Extreme Storytime," supported by an LSTA grant, offers bilingual programs in six languages, driven more by educational interest than assimilation efforts. After all, says Byers, "The typical immigrant is working on [his/her] doctorate."

Oak Park also offers in-house reading lists geared to its users; Berwyn relies on the Read-a-Like bookmarks used by more than 500 North American libraries and bookstores. BPL has, however, developed its own "Holds Without Hassle" service to alert cardholders when their favorite authors' works arrive.

Berwyn has a good collection of books in Czech but is more likely to lend them to the University of Chicago than to the aging population of bilingual locals. Spanish is the new challenge. BPL patrons get the library newsletter in English and Spanish—an effort not needed in Oak Park—and the library collects 15 periodicals in Spanish. Bilingual librarians will arrive when staffers finish library school.

Choices on the horizon

Oak Parkers love their new library but are divided, for example, on the amount of noise they feel is appropriate. They also wonder about security. Several city agencies fund Youth Interventionists, attempts to steer wayward youth from misbehavior before the cops are called.

The library had planned to digitize significant parts of its Wright and Hemingway materials by July; it has postponed the project until later this year owing to staff constraints. Still, the library web site has pages providing basic information about Wright, Hemingway, and Oak Park–born author Carol Shields. There's daily delivery to the branches, but, with more money, books would come more often. And the lovely building? Well, the expanse of glass has flummoxed birds, which have been colliding with the windows. Installation of decoy decals began in April.

The library strategic plan, 2004–08, is less futuristic blueprint than checklist of responsibilities: continue fundraising, monitor branch improvements. It is centered on providing "superior library materials and service" that responds to Oak Park's diverse community.

In Berwyn, Hensley and his crew would like to do more—besides the bookmobile, add a new outreach staffer to attract the Hispanic population and an online community bulletin board. Part of the constraint is political; though Berwyn is no bigger than Oak Park, it has two parks departments, one of which promotes library activities in its newsletter, one of which does not.

Berwyn's mission statement calls for an "approachable, intellectually accessible organization that is sensitive to the needs of all users." The library strategic plan is more granular—and aspirational—than OPPL's, calling for the appointment of a teen advisory board (as Oak Park has), revitalizing the Friends group, and developing new marketing tactics.

The strategic plan suggests a possible transition to a library district, but state officials suggest caution when the tax base is stagnant. Political support, however, may improve. In April, Berwyn elected a reform mayor who campaigned against the entrenched slate. The new mayor once served on the library board, and his transition team has expressed support for the library. Even some shuffles—eliminating some high-salaried spots in other agencies—could free up money for a library that could clearly use it.

"Why can't you be more like Oak Park?" Berwyn patrons sometimes lament. But Oak Park is not only wealthier than most towns, its citizens are unusually willing to tax themselves. For libraries like Berwyn to catch up, both local support and good government are obviously crucial. Still—as the Robbins situation illustrates most dramatically (see above)—local efforts hit their limits. School-funding equalization suits, some successful, have been filed in state courts. If libraries are as essential as schools, isn't it time to be thinking about how larger government entities can also ensure solid library services?

	OAK PARK	BERWYN
Population 2000 census	52,524	54,016
Library budget 2005	$5.2M	$1.7M
Materials budget 2005	$812,500	$160,600
Median home value 2000	$231,300	$132,900
	U.S. average: $119,600
Per capita income 2000	$36,340	$19,113
	U.S. average: $21,587
Bachelor's degrees (or higher) 2000	62.1%	17.2%
	U.S. average: 24.4%
Staff FTE	73	42
Starting librarian's salary	$37,807	$31,200
Circulation 2004	913,247	394,908
AV circulation 2004	281,663	151,009