Indianapolis-Marion County Library and Video
Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library CEO Linda Mielke isn’t feeling the love from library employees, according to an anonymous whistleblower. When the previous library CEO, Edward Szynaka, was fired in April of 2003, he was criticized for his lack of leadership ability, rapport with board members, and community relations.
Ms. Mielke’s latest exploits haven’t won her too many fans at the library either. In an e-mail to the library staff Ms. Mielke mandated that all staff sign up for the library advocacy campaign. If a staff member did not want to sign up, they were required to email her and schedule a meeting with her to explain why they refused to do so.
The library board’s hands don’t seem too clean either. According to a recent Indy Star piece,
“Mahern said the board thought she deserved a raise for cutting costs without cutting services. Last week, he said the board wanted to offer a salary that was competitive with other Midwestern libraries of similar size so directors would not leave for better opportunities. ‘Looking back at it now, the timing was unfortunate,’ Mahern said.”
Unfortunate? If the board thought that Ms. Mielke did such a fantastic job, why wouldn’t they have asked for her raise in December of 2005 (the raise would have been retroactive to December), instead of waiting till April?
In one of the advocacy mailings the library campaign stated “We’ll be sharing some comparisons to other library systems around the state and country. We believe we have one of the finest library systems in the nation and we have the data to prove it.”
So what’s on the agenda of one the “finest libraries? Literacy? Bookmobiles to the elderly? NO!!! None of those things are important… BUT VIDEOS ARE! Instead of Twain, Longfellow, or Thoreau, you’ll be seeing more Sandler, Black, and Witherspoon. Last year the IMCPL spent over $700,000 on videos. According to an internal email sent to the library staff, administrative officials admitted that the library collection will become shallower. But with an increase in video checkouts comes a rise in both circulation statistics and fines. Feature films can only be checked out for 3 days and 12 can be checked out at a time. The fine for a DVD is $2 a day, while the fine for a book is .25 cents.
So where are library savings coming from? Thirty-four library employees were “asked” to retire and their jobs were not replaced. Many librarians were red-circled, meaning they were knocked down a pay grade. Most of them are now at the top of their new pay range and will not receive any more pay increases. Effectively the longer one continues to be employed by the library, the less they will earn. Automatic two percent “cost of living increases” (which in reality don’t come close to the increases in the Consumer Price Index which was around 4 percent last year) were replaced by merit based raises with the largest possible increase being 2% and 2007’s increase is scheduled to top out at 1%. With fewer workers and more library traffic, the library workers are tired and overworked. It’s such a contentious issue, the library staff are currently discussing the formation of a union.
Ironically, Ms Mielke asked for a 4% increase in pay… and it wasn’t based on merit. Maybe the library sold the book of Chinese proverbs that say “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.” They need money to buy more videos, ya know?
My Big Mouth | admin April 3, 2006
