Minneapolis Public Library leadership problems

There is a lot of breast-beating going on about the financial straits of the Minneapolis Public Library. The library has been playing chicken with the citizens of Minneapolis, planning to close three marginal branches in order to keep the rest of the system functioning. This strategy has worked pretty well; the library now has the attention of the community, the mayor, and of city hall. There will be a bail-out vote on Monday.

The blame for the financial situation that caused this sorry state of affairs has been assigned to the city council, the Republican governor and his cuts in local government aid, and the mayor, who believes, without much basis, that Minneapolis has too many libraries. There are some who blame the Library Board for being ineffective. There is plenty of blame to go around, and there is justification for all the assignments.

However, no one has talked about the responsibility of the library staff over the years for the current problems of the library. Before I say more, here's a bit of truth in advertising: I used to be one of those staff members before being "laid off" in January of 2005. And when I say staff, I am talking about the leadership of the library. The rank and file staff are, by and large, devoted to the library and hard working.

The selection of administrators and directors for the library has been characterized by mishandled searches, unclear goals, and hidden agendas among library Board members that obscure the need for strong leadership. As a result, there has been no director in many years who has been a strong advocate for public libraries. Recent directors, including the current one, have been bureaucrats, exemplars of the Peter Principle, and ambitious folks who used MPL as a stepping stone for bigger, better, things. None of them has been able to articulate effectively why we need public libraries and why we as a community should support them. Instead, the library has relied for support on lots of heart-warming stories that are doubtless true, but are really only anecdotal, rather than systemic, descriptions of the role libraries should play in a civil society.

Without leadership that is able to get the message out in a compelling way, any effort put into keeping Southeast, Roosevelt, and Webber Park branches open is only a stop gap measure. Such efforts do not address the leadership problem at the Minneapolis Public Library. This problem is one of the root causes of its financial difficulties. But it's also the elephant in the living room.