Sunday, December 12, 2010

I'm Very Concerned!

Last Tuesday I attended the first session of the Santa Clarita Libraries Planning Committee as a public observer. I left feeling very very concerned about the future of the libraries in my city. The Library Planning Committee consists of 31 people who were hand-picked by McLean and Ender. All most all are white and none seem to have been people who were opposed to the city take over of the library nor who had had experience with the County System. This in itself is not terribly worrying, I think that most of the people will try to offer their best during these sessions. What has big question marks and @#* signs going on above my head is LSSI (Library Systems and Services Inc.) the for profit group taking over the management of the libraries.
Here are my thoughts and observations:
1) With all the brouhaha in Santa Clarita, it seems that LSSI should be putting their best foot forward and at least making an attempt to be moderately professional which I didn't really see at all. I'll explain why in the next points.
2) The facilitator of the session, a Mr. Ron Dubberly, claims that he is a librarian with more than 30 years of experience, yet he also claims that he is severely technologically challenged. We are information professionals, technology is the main point of dissimination for technology during this technological age which has been in full force for at least 2 plus decades which encompasses the a good part of Mr. Dubberly's career. Shameful, shameful, shameful.
3) So essentially LSSI has a lackluster dinosaur leading the Library Planning Committee in developing plans for Library Services in the 21st Century. Yes, this really does inspire a high degree of faith in what is to come for Santa Clarita.
4) LSSI is taking over 5 libraries from two different systems at about the same time. From experience I know that opening, reopening and/or relocating businesses requires a tremendous amount of time, effort, energy and organization. LSSI cannot get out a simple MS Word document which only required a simple amount of editing. Insert City of Santa Clarita into the template instead of the last city they worked with. How are they ever going to manage a "smooth transition" in 7 months?
5) All this makes me wonder if LSSI is biting off more than it can chew with the Santa Clarita and Ventura libraries? And I question why they would even try? Again from experience, when companies aggressively go after contracts like there is no tomorrow it is because there isn't one if they don't. I have a bad feeling that LSSI is likely in financial straits and is gobbling up contracts with the hopes that down the line their bottom line will even out. Since LSSI is a private company that is publicly we don't know what kind of shenanigans they are up to with the account books. But I have a very very bad feeling about it all. Because I can read the writing on the wall quite well, my hunches are usually pretty much on the mark. We shall see. We shall see.

2 comments:

JSD said...

Dearest Lucy,

You need not concern yourself with LSSI's corporate take over of your libraries. *waves hand* These aren't the books you're looking for. *waves hand again* You can go about your business.

Movie references aside, I empathize with your short-staffedness from a few posts ago. I haven't had 8 hours of sleep (check the submit time of this post, for example) in 8 months. Do not pass go, do not collect $200, do not go running, go directly to 14 hour work day jail. The upside of this slave labor is that the company is doing well and I get to keep my job and not get fired and live on the beach relinquishing my vegetarian ways and catching, cooking, and eating feral chickens living in a tent on the North Shore. You know, actually, that doesn't sound too bad...

Anyway, hope this message finds you well. Send me a F'ing Christmas card, k?

JSD said...

Also, too: Send me your address so I can send you a Xmas card. JSDreyer Gmail com.

Also, Three: When TF are you coming to Hawaii again??!? Hell of a lot cheaper (and funner for you) for you to come here than for the four of us to fly out there, although it may happen at some point.