Chattanooga's Library Ends Partnership with County and Eyes Management Agreement With University
By Michael Kelley Aug 15, 2011The public library in Chattanooga is reshaping itself in several significant ways:
--- On July 1, the city let expire a relationship with Hamilton County and took over responsibility for full funding of the local library.
--- Library service at the Ooltewah/Collegedale Branch in the city of Collegedale, which was previously subsidized by Chattanooga, was taken over on August 1 by Collegedale. The city hired the private firm Library Systems & Services Inc. (LSSI) to manage the library. The Collegedale City Commission voted on July 5 to raise local property taxes to pay for the operation of the library. LSSI has hired three of the six current full-time staff. The grand opening was held today.
--- The city is exploring entering into a management agreement with the Lupton Library at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC) to administer the downtown main library and the remaining four branches. The university has begun construction of a $48 million, 180,000 square foot library at its downtown campus (anticipated opening is spring 2013).
--- The library board is being completely replaced, without county representation, and possibly expanded from the seven members (required by state law) to as many as 11 members (appointed by Mayor Ron Littlefield and approved by the city council). A vote is scheduled for August 16.
--- The library will not make a decision on hiring a permanent director until the new governance structure is in place. David Clapp retired as director on December 31, 2010.
--- The name Chattanooga Hamilton County Bicentennial Library will be changed either to the Public Library or the Chattanooga Public Library.
Room to work together
Eva Johnson, the public library's interim director since January, has attended one meeting about the possibility of UTC running the public library.
"The mayor seems to think that the university can administer the public library, too," Johnson said. "The main concern is that we have different missions and different clientele."
Johnson said that public library patrons often require more hands-on work since they are not as technologically savvy as university students and often need assistance in online job hunting, creating email accounts, and other activities that are a given at the university.
"My own opinion is you can administer the library with less money if you have someone else administering it for you. That would be the benefit if you could do it," she said.
Richard Beeland, the city's media relations director, said the mayor's goal was the best library service possible.
"Once the new library board of directors is in place and a new executive director hired, they can continue to discuss the merits and consequences of a partnership with the university," he said. "As libraries are evolving, we have to explore what the opportunities are for partnership and collaboration," Beeland said. "Saving money is certainly a part of it but also providing the best library service that we can, which we don't know if we can accomplish with the library downtown because of its age and dated content."
Regardless of the outcome, Johnson said she has had talks with UTC dean of library sciences Theresa Liedtka about how the two systems, which are only about a mile apart, could work together for their mutual benefit.
"They want a downtown presence to get out into the community, and...I don't have enough staff to do all the things I want to do like computer training," Johnson said. "So, Theresa was talking about some of the students doing some internships at the library," she said.
The library systems already share interlibrary loan, and Chattanooga residents can borrow materials from the university library if they pay a $50 fee.
"There have been several conversations and meetings about the possibility of entering a management agreement with the city to oversee the public libraries, as well as discussion surrounding new ideas for collection, services and the facilities," Liedtka said.
Liedtka said that she has agreed to sit on the library's new board. She said she agreed with Johnson that public and academic libraries have "different and complex missions," but there was room for cooperation.
"There is plenty we can learn from each other and lots of ways to look at resource sharing and expertise to the betterment of our local communities," she said.
She cited more focused collection development, more seamless borrowing, more shared and efficient operations as possible benefits.
The city of San Jose and San Jose State University share space in the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library, but the administrative structures are separate. In Chattanooga, they are not ruling out blending that structure, Liedtka said.
Taking control of funding
Chattanooga's public library system was harshly criticized in a 2009 report for being underfunded and poorly managed. As a step toward changing the library's operations, the city decided to let a sales tax agreement with the county expire on May 23.
Chattanooga officials said that the agreement, which dated to 1966, was unfairly forcing five of ten cities (Chattanooga, Red Bank, Lookout Mountain, Signal Mountain, and East Ridge) to fund agencies that also service another five cities (Walden, Soddy Daisy, Lakesite, Ridgeside, and Collegedale) without any proportional contributions from them or the county itself.
In the case of the library, Chattanooga residents were providing 100 percent of the operating budget for the library through a combination of the sales tax and city property taxes, even though city residents only constituted 45 percent of users.
"This new system sets up the city as the only funder of the library," Beeland said. From now on, nonresidents will be assessed a fee to use the library, he said.
The library's budget for FY12, completely funded by the city, is $5.7 million.
The city appropriated $750,000 in its FY12 capital budget to move the Eastgate branch to a different building with about three times the space (35,000 square feet), but, according to the 2009 report, such investments are rare with the library having spent less than $6 million for new buildings since 1905.
Allowing the sales tax agreement to expire may have helped dispel some uncertainty about governance and funding that was clouding talks with the university.
"I think it's been a complicating factor in the conversation, the added layer of uncertainty about the government support and who was in control," Phil Oldham, provost at UTC, told Nooga.com.
"There's been a lot of discussion in recent years on the nature of libraries," Oldham said. "What does the future library need to look like, what kinds of programs and collections does it need to have? Having been through that on this campus, that's fresh on our minds. Both sides see this as an opportunity to do something creative and unique that doesn't exist anywhere else."
On her website, June Garcia, a library consultant based in Denver who coauthored the 2009 report and who is helping the city in its search for a new director, said, "There is a distinct likelihood that the city's public library will have a closer working relationship with the library at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga."
But the city is extending the time for deciding on a new director until its new governance model is in place, Garcia wrote. Johnson, who has worked at the library since 1970, has applied for the position.
"I care about the library, and if I'm the best person I want to put in my name," she said.
