Dear Source:
Last Tuesday I was treated, along with the Board of Directors of the Friends of the St. Thomas Public Libraries, to a tour of what will be dubbed the Charles Wesley Turnbull Regional Library. This new, state of the art library features spaces that will house the von Scholten Collection of Caribbean research materials; is the tech hub for the territory¹s library system; a 100+ seat theatre; a high-tech conference room plus meeting areas; rooms for young children, children and young adults; DRM (digital rights management) plans are underway to enable check-out and check-in of e-books; conservation and preservation labs for all kinds of information media; power and network redundancies and a small, way too small and dedicated staff that wants to make this work but won¹t have enough hours in the day to do so. If this team was unable to keep tiny Enid M. Baa due to understaffing, how on earth does anyone expect them to be able to keep the fantastically outfitted new library available?
Certainly from what I saw, volunteers will be needed in a few weeks to assist with helping to catalog and stock the stacks. That is a given. The staff that is on duty now can barely meet their day to day management duties, because they are tasked with doing the work that normally is assigned to the rank and file. Busy but important work to be sure. I am flummoxed at how they remain so cheerful and proud of the new library and what they have been able to accomplish thus far, knowing that they are under an avalanche that will increase exponentially the minute those doors open, if they don¹t have enough bodies to make this library useful to its visitors amazing to me.
This is not just affecting the new library, but from what I understand (there are other library friends on the other islands), all of the territory¹s libraries suffer from a dearth of attention from our government, even as they demand more and more from those who really don¹t have anything left to give.
Priorities, priorities, priorities. The next bond issue press release should be about how we are going to get our libraries staffed correctly. Each reading room and station (there will be both a VINGN computer center and library computer center for those who wish to access the digital collections) needs not one but two staff members, full time. These are not just baby sitters, they are trained professionals who offer guidance and supervision. And they need to go potty, eat lunch and take vacations. Or they may be ill. Or there may be special projects. The IT Manager needs more skilled technicians as well as administrative support on each island. Huge amounts of attention should be given to the restoration, preservation and cataloging of documents, maps, booklets and periodicals of historical and educational significance. The book mobiles, which serve remote areas, need backup drivers so that one person is not burdened and unable to rest or get all work done properly. Each bookmobile also needs at least one librarian assigned to serve the public.
The joy I felt touring the new library is now, in the light of day, tempered with the resignation that unless our government gets a more realistic view of what our library staff members need, they have, perhaps, generated the biggest white elephant that the territory has ever known. We have no library at all on St. Thomas. And if this one opens under-staffed, without the type of hours and leeway for creative energy necessary to engage and serve the community, it may as well be dead. I don¹t want to attend a funeral. I want to attend a celebration. They should not break the champagne bottle on the side of the SS Tutu until they figure out how to get it crewed and stocked properly. It is insanity to not give our librarians and IT people what they need to create something of ultimate pride, that should last for generations.
The community really needs to take the time to write a letter, call a senator, talk to a commissioner. Soon the Friends of the St. Thomas Public Libraries will be looking for volunteers to help get the books onto the shelves and accounted for at the new library. After that, we need greater staffing with professionals, and appropriate support. Volunteers, even with hearts in the right places, cannot replace educated library science professionals, archivists, and tech pros.
Earlier this week, Senator Myron D. Jackson has hosted a hearing, and he was kind enough to reach out to all of the library friends throughout the territory, and we were all represented. All we need is for people to listen, not just hear. Understand, not just nod. Appropriate, appropriate, appropriate. Find the money. Find the money. Find the money. We always see it happen for emergencies. Well, this is an emergency.
My two cents. May be a bit severe, but it¹s how I feel.
Now we hear that the facility is slated to open late March. I can only dream that proper staffing, community-friendly hours and financial issues have been addressed so that this library will be the dream that was envisioned so many decades ago, and that the Enid M. Baa Public Library will become a suitable annex for those who have come to rely on library services in the downtown area.
Dreams can come true, but only we can be responsible for them.
Anita Davis, St. Thomas
