Letters To Kennesaw City Hall

I am trying to get the attention of the elected City Officials in Kennesaw to how our little downtown library is getting short changed, with only a change of title, the below letter was hand delivered to City Hall on Monday. It is now Thursday and no one has made any reply plus I do not see from my several 'site meters' on this blog that anyone from the City of Kennesaw has even looked at this blog site this week.


I want to thank Councilmember Bruce Jenkins for having responded to my initial email of March 24th, his reply is at the end of this blogsite.

Library Pay and the New Library Hours

Cobb County Library Staffing:

The library has 320 employee positions, divided between 124 full time positions and 196 part time positions.


The pay grade range from Grade 40 for the 3 Library Couriers and 30 Library Assistant 1’s ($23-$35,817) to Grade 64 (Library Director $75-$123,322). There are 3 Associate Library Manager positions, at pay grade 59 ($59-$95,264) and 4 Regional/Central Library Manager positions at pay grade 57 ($53-$86,091).

This info is available at the 436 page '2011-2012 Cobb County Biennial Budget' at:  http://finance.cobbcountyga.gov/downloads/11-12-biennial-budget.pdf

Cobb County Library Hours
Kennesaw Downtown Library hours are:
10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday-Wednesday
11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday-Friday
1 p.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday

West Cobb Regional Library hours are:
10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday-Wednesday
11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday-Saturday

On Monday April 11th, each of the 17 Cobb County Library Managers, the Director and various Trustees got a letter similar to that below, slightly changed to reflect their positions.  Since it seems that Director Poyer is not going to do anything, perhaps making the problem more widely known will help.

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April 8, 2011

Ms. Franklin, Trustee

Cobb County Public Library System

266 Roswell Street

Marietta, Ga 30060

Problems with Allocation of Books within the Library System

Dear Ms. Franklin:

I believe that there is a problem with the allocation of books within the Cobb County Library System.  My letter to Director Poyer did not resolve it and I hope you and the Board of Trustees will take a look at the problem as described on my blog site.

I suspect that the ‘floating’ system in use in our system is responsible for this and it is  probably the same with other Regional vs. Local libraries.  This needs to change ASAP so that books do not keep piling up in unusable quantities in the Main and Regional Libraries.

My research is between the West Cobb Regional and Kennesaw Downtown libraries and I suspect that this is taking place throughout the 17 library system.  I know that our Kennesaw branch library is getting fewer books in the stacks than we should be getting.  Please take a look at the Blogsite for additional details on this and other points which show that the West Cobb Regional Library has far too many copies of titles vs. our own Kennesaw Library.

I am disappointed that my inquiry to the Library Director (shown on blog site) did not result in the problem being corrected.  The reply was full of generalities and platitudes, more suitable for a letter soliciting donations than an attempt to look into an existing problem.

I expect something to be done to correct the matter and I will be contacting both the media and Library Trustees in order to make the Library more effective in serving its patrons.

Sincerely yours,

Bill Harris

P O Box 7252

Marietta, Ga 30065

encl:  misc.

In a related Library Matter:

Closing of Kennesaw Library Among Possible County Cuts

Thirteen of 17 of Cobb's libraries and a pair of senior centers could be closed within a month to help solve the county's budget deficit.

Details at:  http://kennesaw.patch.com/articles/closing-of-kennesaw-library-among-possible-county-cuts

(Update:  This 'library closing' nonsense turned out to be just a tempest in a teapot, all caused by Chairman Lee and his need to grab some headlines.  It needlessly upset library patrons and employees all for no purpose.  I believe Lee was only interested in getting his name in the papers so he could a few days later come to the rescue of the library system.  There never was any need to close 13 libraries, the whole thing was manufactured bullshit.  Watch for this political hack to run for some bigger public office next year.)

Having read the various articles these closings are merely proposed and there are other viable options, such as 2 furlough days for the 4,300 Cobb County workers, which would save enough $ to keep the 13 libraries open.  I doubt that 13 libraries will close, perhaps 2 in East Cobb, but their is little chance of any massive closures systemwide.

Sandbars in the Floating system?

About 20-25 years ago a ‘new’ system for library material management started to catch on.

It isn’t used everywhere, but Cobb County does use the ‘floating’ system to manage its purchasing and stocking.

Traditionally library branches ‘owned’ the books on their shelves.  If a book was taken out at branch A and later returned to branch B it would be shipped back to the owning branch A.

Using the 'owned system' took time and effort in repositioning the books/materials to their original libraries and kept them out of circulation for a few extra days and required shipping them between branches.  The 'floating'  system was devised which it was felt reduced the necessity for this endless interchange between libraries.  It was believed that the new floating system reduced overhead and made it possible to reduce the number of the same items being purchased.  Under this floating system materials taken out at branch A are returned to any branch and retained there.  No branch ‘owns’ the material.  It just floats through the system. 

I prefer to refer to this as the ‘aimlessly drifting system’.  Think of a book as a log drifting down a river, eventually these logs (books) tend to pile up on sandbars, our sandbars are the Main library and 3 Regional libraries.

Over time the books leaving the local branches tend to pile up on the sandbars of the system (think logjam).  This is why West Regional ends up with 11 copies of the Robb book ‘Salvation in Death’ and Kennesaw Downtown has 0.  Or why you can see below on my list of 13 titles that West Regional has between 6 and 11 copies of the same title and Kennesaw Downtown has 0 copies of these books.  In the worst example, the Kellerman ‘Evidence’ had 17 copies at West Regional with only 1 at Kennesaw.

The Library Journal has a decent summary of this ‘floating’ system and it can be found at:  http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA456235.html

When our Main or Regional libraries get such great quantities of the same titles piled up on their shelves they need to exercise some common sense and rather than stack them up on the shelves or in a store room they should take the excess books off their own shelves and send them out to the branch libraries that they serve.  A quote from the above mentioned Library Journal:  “If too many copies accumulate at a branch at Gwinnett, staff simply toss them into bins for delivery to other locations.”

No library needs 8-18 copies of the same title on its shelves.  Can we now have some common sense applied and get these overages of books off the Main/Regional shelves and out to the branch libraries? 

Another Trip to the West Cobb Regional Library

I made another visit to the West Cobb Regional library to see what/if any changes had been made since my first visit and subsequent letter to the library director.

Virtually no change found.  The topmost shelves used to store excess copies were now bare of any books, presumably those excess books were put into the stacks or put into a storeroom.  I did find some overages reduced, for instance the Kellerman book 'Evidence' which had 17 copies last month now had only 9, however, this visit found that Conroy's 'South Broad' which had 10 copies last month had 14 this month.

Summary:  Little has changed.

West Regional continues to have far too many books of the same title, far more than the patrons there will ever rush in to take out.  This needs to change, it is a waste of scarce resources and probably is not going to change under the Helen Poyer leadership.
 
Below are some new titles which you might reasonably be considered to have either been over purchased or not distributed well among other libraries.

James Patterson, 'Swimsuit'
10 copies

Janet Evanovich, 'Sizzling Sixteen
10 copies

Dean Koontz, 'Breathless'
11 copies

Danielle Steel, 'Matters of the Heart'
13 copies

Danielle Steel, 'One Day at a Time'
9 copies

Update continued:

Some libraries are displaying fiction books on available surface spaces, this helps patrons find new releases or popular authors.

The problem described below and summarized here, is that the Cobb County Library is, for unknown reasons, apparently buying far to many copies of the same title; the alternative scenario is, that they are buying enough, but for unknown reasons they are not being parceled out to other libraries and end up pretty much dumped enmass at various libraries.  My research is limited to my own area, I don't know what you might find in the other 15 libraries, quite probably the same situation.

One thing that I can say with absolute assurance is, that there is no way on Earth that we need 17 copies, or 13 copies of any book at any one library and of course there well may be other copies, over and above those on the shelf, that are checked out.  So the statistics of 17 and 13 might well be 25 and 20 if there are other copies of that title already in circulation from that library. 


We have so many multiple copies of books that there is not enough shelf space to put them on, many are stacked up on the top shelf (see photos).

This situation is a major waste of resources, both in the possibility of over ordering of individual titles and absolutely in the nonsense of having so many of the same title that they have to be stacked on top of the shelves.

I don't know what the reason for this is, terrible management comes to mind, but this must change.  I have written to the Director of the Cobb County Library and established this blog site so that the chaos of the Cobb County Library is brought to other Taxpayers attention as well as the Library administration, including the trustees.

I also know that my own Downtown Kennesaw library is getting short changed with many of the titles being kept at West Cobb Regional and none at the Downtown Kennesaw branch.

Here is an example of how many copies of various titles are at Cobb West Regional v. how many of the same title are available on the shelf, on the same day (3/19/11) at Kennesaw Downtown.

Johnathan Kellerman, ‘Evidence’

17 West Cobb Regional,  as of 4/1 there are 9 copies

1 Kennesaw Downtown

Jeffery Deaver, ‘Roadside Crosses’

9 West Cobb Regional, as of 4/1 there are 8 copies

0 Kennesaw Downtown

Julie Garwood, ‘Sizzle’

8 West Cobb Regional, as of 4/1 there are 7 copies

1 Kennesaw Downtown

James Patterson, ‘Alex Cross’s Trial’

8 West Cobb Regional, as of 4/1 there are 7 copies

0 Kennesaw Downtown

James Patterson, ‘Cross Country’

6 West Cobb Regional, as of 4/1 there are 5 copies

0 Kennesaw Downtown

Mary Higgins Clark, ‘Just Take My Hand’

13 West Cobb Regional, as of 4/1 there are 7 copies
1 Kennesaw Downtown

Catherine Coulter, ‘Knock Out’

10 West Cobb Regional, as of 4/1 there are 8 copies

2 Kennesaw Downtown

Michael Connelly, ‘The Scarecrow’

9 West Cobb Regional, as of 4/1 there are 8 copies

0 Kennesaw Downtown

Pat Conroy, ‘South Broad’

10 West Cobb Regional, as of 4/1 there are 14 copies

1 Kennesaw Downtown

Stuart Woods, ‘Lucid Intervals’

9 West Cobb Regional, as of 4/1 there are 5 copies

0 Kennesaw Downtown

Stuart Woods, ‘Loitering with Intent’

11 West Cobb Regional, as of 4/1 there are 3 copies

1 Kennesaw Downtown

J. D. Robb, ‘Salvation in Death’

11 West Cobb Regional, as of 4/1 there are 11 copies

0 Kennesaw Downtown

J. D. Robb, ‘Promises in Death’

8 West Cobb Regional, as of 4/1 there are 9 copies

0 Downtown Kennesaw

Update FYI:  Kennesaw Councilmember Mr. Bruce Jenkins replied to my earlier emailed inquiry, this correspondence and reply is available at the bottom of this blogsite.

Library Problems in Cobb County

Reply of 3/30/11

Photo:  Library Director Helen Poyer

No library branch needs to have 17 copies
of the same title on hand!























Johnathan Kellerman - 'Evidence'
17 Copies at West Cobb Regional
1 Copy at Kennesaw Downtown

James Patterson  
'Alex Cross's Trial'
8 Copies at West Cobb Regional
0 Copies at Kennesaw Downtown


'Cross Country'
6 Copies at West Cobb Regional
0 Copies at Kennesaw Downtown






Stuart Woods 
'Lucid Intervals'
9 Copies at West Cobb Regional
0 Copies at Kennesaw Downtown

'Loitering with Intent'
11 Copies at West Cobb Regional
0 Copies at Kennesaw Downtown

Click on for larger copy:

Cobb County Public Library Board


Description: Consisting of nine (9) members appointed by the BOC this Board serves in an advisory capacity to BOC on items of interest and important relating to the public libraries of Cobb County. For full duties of this Board see O.C.G.A. Sections 20-5-40 through 20-5-44. Appointments are for three (3) year terms. Members receive no compensation.

Board Members:
Peggy Pool
Bernice Franklin
Cherrie Coleman-Graffread
Abby Shiffman
Don Elrod
Les Still
Sally Rhoden
Charles Switzer
Peggy Holbrook


Contact Information: Cobb County Public Library Director - (770) 528-2320

Here is an 'observation/comment', put last as it is reflective of my personal reading taste.

The author Lee Child is a popular author of fiction books and has written about 16 books.  He is someone I read whenever I can find one of his books that I have not yet read.  I was surprised to find only two of his various titles on the shelf at West Regional.

I have no complaint on the number of copies of those two titles, I just would like to know why more of his titles are not available?

Councilmember Bruce Jenkins Replies:

Click on page for larger view: