QPAW and the Hellabore MediX Company

QPAW and the Hellabore MediX Company

Sweatshop Sagas, No. 2

James Duvall, M. A.

Big Bone University

Dept. of Medical Signs and Unwanted Favours

A few weeks ago I wrote an essay about working for the Solo Soupcan Inferno. Perhaps no one is interested in such things, but a taste of reality is a good thing. At the least I can include them as chapters in my Autobiography, which I intend to write posthumously.

Quicko-Printo Advertising World (QPAW) — I change the names to protect you from reality — is a sweatshop in Kenton County. (Yes, they have them there too.) Even the guy at the temporary service, KAT (Kill-a-Temp) seemed surprised when I agreed to take this $8/ hour job with 12 hour shifts. "You will?!" While I was working at QPAW I noticed one of their signs going to a style shop "Hot, Hot, Hot." I don't know what the style was, but it couldn't have been as hot as that shop.

Everyone working in the packing department was temporary, except for the lead, a hard-looking woman with a smoker's voice, and a complexion like cantaloup rind. She had the work badly organized. The shop keeps going through people for some reason. My employee number in this small "short-history" firm, was 9121. Ain't that a lot of people!

The shift was from 6 am - 6 pm, but, fortunately, I was called late, when someone else walked off the job, and didn't get there till about 9.30. Everyone else had been sweating for four hours when I got there, and their pace had slowed to a crawl. I call the whole enterprise "Penny wise, pound foolish." It is my theory that, except in special cases, you are not getting the best out of any body after five or six hours, especially in the heat. Why not raise the pay a little and give the people an incentive to stay? Henry Ford had been paying workers on his assembly line 50 cents a day, and went through thousands of workers. Over his opposition, the management of Ford talked him into raising the pay to $5 a day, an unheard of amount at that time, and soon the factory went from complete turnover every month or two to having a waiting list, and profits soared!

It would have been crazy to work like wildfire in that heat. To last twelve hours at almost anything you have to pace yourself. In my view the firm (infirm?) is wasting money. They can't afford to pay $8 an hour, to be efficient they should pay about $10-$12 for a six hour shift, so that packing would be efficient. Printing presses nowadays are very fast. The real trouble with printing is handling what you produce; no matter how fast your presses go you can't send out product and get your money any faster than the stuff is packed. That is the bottleneck, and low pay and turnover only make the bottleneck worse.

The place was filthy. No soap in the bathrooms, etc. That shows lack of respect for the workers. All the workers (except me, while I was still fresh) had the slows. One girl's t-shirt expressed the feeling of most: "I get enough exercise pushing my luck!" I could have taken three of my oldest children and gotten most of the work done in about half the time it was produced by QPAW. There were no Hispanics. I had left them behind, working efficiently for $7.50/hour, at SSI, while I went on to sweat even more elsewhere. Wait till they find out there are $8 an hour jobs available; but perhaps even they would not work in such conditions.

I got about $50 for the day for my efforts. It is certainly a challenge to try to feed 7 children, 3 dogs, about 10 cats, and a large white rabbit for a week on that amount. (The ducks and chickens don't count; they're not family, they're food. But they still have to eat.)

I didn't get anything at first this week, except an offer to return to QPAW, which I declined. The 40 miles or so there (and that distance home) took a good bite out of the %50. I did get a promising job interview: part-time permanent, at minimum wage, and no guarantee on the number of hours. (Great economy, ain't it, Jerry Mort!)

Friday I got a chance to work at the Hellabore MediX Company, in the Industrial Park. This was the best job yet, at $9 an hour. I was the bottle and glue man, on a Hellabore packing machine. Two bottles go into a box, one was 1900 millaliters (about the size of a half-gallon of milk), and the other was 500 ml. (about the size of a bottle of witch-hazel, or rubbing alcohol). One line held 21 of the big bottles, and the other held 35 of the small bottle, so you can imagine which had to be filled the most often. I also had to dump dried glue chips into the heater about every half hour. There's a good job in Boone County now. All I had to do was enjoy it.

I did learn a bit about Hellabore — not there, but from my big herbal at home. There are three kinds of Hellabore — black, green, and white — they are all considered poison, but the small bottle was the antidote. (Of course not all poisons will kill you instantly, soap, for instance; it can take awhile.) In the old days Hellabore was a prescription for lunatics, so I suppose most of the product is going to Washington, D. C. Perhaps the antidote should be suppressed!

I am normally very interested to learn people's names, but this day I decided not to. I wasn't exactly jealous, but one of the men on the line was just so much more of a man than I am, if these things are calculated in gross tonage. He fell once and knocked off a lot of medicine bottles, which rolled all over the floor. We wiped them off with paper towels, but I was told later it didn't matter about germs and dirt, as the doctor or nurse just punches a hole in the box and never touches the bottle.

The other person on the line was a pockfaced individual with scraggles of red hair and beard under a beret. He wore long coach's shorts, with white nylon support hose up to his knees — the kind that the little lady greeter at Walmart tried to sell me late one night, as I was walking out of the store — she sells them on the side, and perhaps does a brisk business amongst fact'ry workers. He wsa fast at packing, and could apparently sit for hours at a time — I wonder why he wsa wearing a huge orange back brace? Perhaps all this "Repetitive Motion Sickness" is not so good for you. It was hot, but there were fans. That helped some.

At lunch I sat down to write a few notes of my impressions. A woman with no teeth, who was gumming her potato chips, kept watching me write. It always seems to be a shock to fact'ry workers when people write anything more than a word or two on a cardboard box with a magical marker. (I nearly caused a sensation at SSI when I wrote an essay of five pages during a short period the line was down.) I heard the Mr. O set aside a huge figure of the so-called "stimulus money" for tattoo removal. Several of the fact'ries I have worked in could suck that up in a few days. I suggest Hellabore might solve the problem better.

There are a few other thoughts that come to mind. The first is that Henry David Thoreau's family owned a pencil fact'ry. Henry D. have the knack of being able to pick up exactly 12 pencils at a time in each hand, and so he used to work in the fact'ry packing pencils. It is a great comfort to me that even a nature-lover like Thoreau used to do this kind of work, sometimes.

The other is that the Industrial Park is looking better. I hadn't been out that way for 15-20 years, and the trees that were small then have really grown. In some places you can barely see the big ugly buildings. In 20-30 years — after the Earthquake — it may look better yet, and then we will have something that Europe has (besides high unemployment): ruins! By then the whole "park" will be a forest, and Henry David will be selling pencils on the roots of one of the big trees. I might be selling them sooner than that — I was called in late again (someone didn't show up, or a line went down too soon), and I made about $50 for the day, and the week. I showed up the next day, and was sent home; not enough work. Those dogs are going to have to go on a diet!

Written 21 Aug MMX. Typed 31 Aug MMX.

Big Bone University
Nec ossa solum, sed etiam sanguinem.


AQQ:  An Archival Quality Quotation:

"The present is a fleeting moment, the past is no more, and our prospect of futurity is dark and doubtful." 

Edward Gibbon, Autobiography

The Mad Hatter's Pity Party

The Mad Hatter's Pity Party; or, Will You Be Able to Retire Before You are 100?

Hidden away on page 20 of the draft of my "History of Taxation in Boone County, Kentucky" is this interesting information that you might want to take into consideration when you are planning for retirement.

I think we are in trouble . . .

This material is based on the work of Jagadeesh Gokhale and Kent Smetters, “Fiscal and Generational Inbalances: New Budget Measures for New Budget Priorities.” Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland Policy Discussion Paper. March 2002.

Gokhale and Smetters asked this question concerning the Federal Debt:

If the government could get all of the future income that it can expect to get today, and use it to pay off all the future expenditures to which it is committed, today; would there be enough to cover all of the debts?

The answer, of course, is no; there would be a shortfall of $45 trillion dollars.  That is twelve times the official national debt, and about four times the national output.

They suggest four alternative ways the government could make up this shortfall:  My question is: What do you think the government will do? (Hint: Pick any two.)

(1)  Cut Federal discretionary spending to zero.
(2)  Cut Social Security and Medicare by 56%
(3)  Increase the Federal income tax by 69%
(4)  Increase payroll taxes by 95%

The real problem with these figures, as Niall Ferguson points out, is not in the calculations, or the final figures, which are very conservative, or even optimistic. In fact the shortfall would be a good deal more than $45 trillion, and the longer it goes without anything being done about it the worse it gets. Gokhale and Smetters calculated that by 2008 the income tax would have to go up by 74% just to break even. The real problem, as Ferguson says:  “To put it bluntly, this news is so bad that scarcely anyone believes it.”

Data cited from Niall Ferguson, Colossus: The Price of America's Empire (New York: Penguin, 2004), p. 269-272.


I tell you what; we'll discuss this again when we both get to be 100.  OK?

James Duvall, M. A.
Big Bone University
Nec ossa solum, sed etiam sanguinem.
Big Bone, Kentucky


"Clean Up Boone County: 
Recycle Moore!"

Paid for by Denizens Against Gary Moore! All slights Deserved. What's left needs to be Conserved!

Nobody was ever meant to remember or invent what he did with every cent

Experience or Impartiality?

Jeff Smith implies that he has had a vast deal more experience than his opponent Rick Brueggemann. I am not greatly impressed with Mr. Smith's experience. He claims to have prosecuted tens of thousands of cases, including two murder cases. I heard a lawyer who has practiced in Boone County for about 40 years say that if he was involved in those cases, he must have carried the Prosecutor's briefcase. Perhaps his experience as deputy Prosecutor would result in complacence! Experience is not the real issue; Mr. Brueggemann has been intensely involved in litigation for years. The real issue is impartially. Can someone married to the CW Prosecutor maintain the impartially required by law? It will be necessary for Mr. Smith to recuse himself for a great many of the cases that would normally come before the District Judge. This could cause individuals, and Boone County, a lot of grief in the future. A Judge should be Judge of all the people, and only occasionally need to recuse himself; this is an important consideration in the upcoming election. Think about it.

James Duvall, M. A.
Big Bone University
Nec ossa solum, sed etiam sanguinem.

A Document about KACo Klan

KACo Klan is a subversive, unconstitutional organization that is wasting millions of dollars of taxpayers money, and subverting justice in the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

Here's some of the waste:

Audit of KACo Klan's Expenditures

There is plenty more on the State Auditor's website.

The False "Compensating Tax Rate" Blasted

Get involved in axing this scam! See the following Kentucky Enquirer article:

Boone PVA Cindy Rich Counters False "Compensating Tax Rate before KY Legislature!"

Cindy is working hard to lower our taxes. She can't do it alone. Get involved. Write your Representative now! Tell them go get on board and lower our tax rates.

Throwing a Stone at the Megastate

or, Who's Robbing the Store?


James Duvall, M. A.
Big Bone University
Department of Economics & Political Irony

“It is better to throw a stone at the right time, than to give gold at the wrong.”
—Socrates Ruggles

In a book published in the dark ages before 2000 A. D., one of our Nobel Prize winners (in chemistry, which means he doesn't know any more about government and politics than we do), wrote a book that I do not recommend for several reasons. He correctly suggests, however, that your government is composed of individuals who are looking out for themselves, and not really “minding the store”. He writes:

When we were children, we thought our parents were taking care of things. Sometimes they were. As adults, we like to think there are some very wise people, usually older than we are, taking care of the planet and us. As a result of this wishful thinking, a lot of people make a living under the pretense of doing just that.
It would be naïve to think that individuals working in government agencies charged with taking care of us, or even in nonprofit foundations with lofty names, are altruistic toward us. They aren't sharing our genes. They aren't our parents. They are attending to their own biological imperatives and their own personal needs. Only when “ours” and “theirs” overlap do we get attention.
[Kary Mullis, “Who's Minding the Store”, in Dancing Naked in the Mind Field (New York: Pantheon, 1998), p. 101.]

I would like to suggest that not only is no one really minding the store, it is being robbed. After all, as he points out a little later in the book, talking about the kind of people who promote global warming, climate change, and ozone holes, on the basis of no science, he remarks: “Your planet is in well-fed hands.” (p. 109) They really are in this for themselves. I suppose our Nobel prize winner has his own motives also, probably to sell books.

This self-interest does not apply just to national or global politics—all politics is local. The guy running the dog-pound, or the “Free Store” is just as self-interested as the chairman of FEMA, or the FDIC. We need to keep turning these guys out of office, and getting new ones (who will be just as incompetent as the old ones were when they started), making sure they have no connections with the former bunch. There are no experts. Barak Hussein O has proved only one thing. That any idiot can be President; you don't even have to have been born here. “Throw the rascals out” was a phrase first coined by a very wise man—unless it was Adam and Eve's Landlord. If so, it is proof that even your ancestors in a direct line didn't always have your best interests in mind. They were in it for what they could get for themselves. Whether stealing apples (persimmons?), or making legalized heists from the national treasury, no one is looking out for us. We need movements like the Teaparty to remind the leeches in government that we are not fooled by their so-called expertise. The party is over, and the playhouse is about to be broken up—for now. It will have to happen again and again.

So, what should our stance to the government be? So far as I can see our two major parties today are both wrong. The people in control of them both espouse Big Government, and Big Spending. They may disagree on exactly how to spend this largesse, and on social issues; but it comes to the same thing regarding the role of government. The politicos of both parties agree that the government should do virtually everything. At the other end of the scale, shading off into Anarchy, are the Libertarians, and others who think that the government should do almost nothing! The lines are going to be drawn on which of these two kinds of government we are going to have; but these will not be the two major parties.

The people know that there should be a government, and that it has a legitimate function. That function is very much smaller than the one is has assumed under the two major parties at present. Even a government a quarter of the size of our current mess is going to be rich and powerful, but it will not have complete control of our lives. In the early days of our country one of the major parties was the Whigs. Eventually this party became irrelevant, and ceased to exist. The other party, the Democratic-Republicans, eventually became two (or more) parties. They at one time broadly represented most voters. In a sense the modern parties are largely a sentimental hang-over from earlier days. Both are largely irrelevant, and even if names are retained, they will both eventually cease to exist. We are now in an era in which “conservative” and “liberal” (not very good names at best), is mostly about values, but the real issue is what kind of government are we going to have! This in itself is a primary value, but it will, in the end, determine how all the others are to be dealt with. Our arguments about government are largely misplaced because there has been a “revolution” in economics that has not yet been grasped.

People and politicos alike (remember there are no experts, even among those who claim to be minding the store) still think that wealth depends primarily on making things and moving things; but the truth is, it is no longer possible to make large profits from such activities. Even the control of money does not guarantee this. (zero interest rates!) Land, labour, and money capital, the traditional sources of wealth, increasingly yield less and less return. In the modern economy what drives profits and produces wealth is knowledge and information.

When I worked at FedEx the company thought it important to keep us constantly informed about the affairs of the company. Most people think that FedEx is primarily concerned with moving things; but the chairman, Fred Smith, in one of his video-casts to us, said something that proves the contrary. He stated that the most valuable product of FedEx is information. Remember that the next time you are trying to track a package. Google seems to be doing better than U. S. Steel, and Government Motors right now. The late Peter Drucker, who was one of our foremost economists, said that the knowledge-based economy does not operate like the traditional theories assume all economies operate. Knowledge cannot be quantified like steel ingots. Our statistical methods do not tell us much about it. We don't even have a theory, as of yet, about how knowledge drives the economy, though it is obvious that it does.

We need an Economics of Knowledge. Peter Drucker writes:

We need an economic theory that puts knowledge into the center of the wealth-producing process. Such a theory alone can explain the present economy. It alone can explain economic growth. It alone can explain innovation.
[Drucker, Post-Capitalist Society, p. 183.]

Knowledge work, Drucker points out, requires the very opposite of central planning and centralization. Big Government is the major factor inhibiting the growth of the economy at the present time. He points out that even the terms used, such as centralization and decentralization, are not economic terms; they are terms used in management. Big Government cannot manage. It cannot help in the current damming of productive energies, but it can surely hinder. The Megastate has become the master of civil society; it endangers life, liberty, and property. All knowledge is created by individuals (not committees, not group-think), and any threat to the sources of private wealth endangers the creation of knowledge-capital. We must set economic limits to what government can do, and thus free the private sector to produce the knowledge that will be the gateway to the future.

How limited do we want the government to be? One of our new writers (I have lost the citation for the present) says: “One could imagine a democratized political, economic, and social system that still contained within it a few formal and informal restraints, sacrificing some energy and dynamism in favor of other virtues, such as transparency, honesty, equity, and stability.” I think a party espousing such a view would speak for me, and for many others. Perhaps enough to counter the Big Government crowd. What we want is not the “Nanny State” that can cater to our every whim, but a government we can respect, to preserve our basic freedoms.

When the government is limited to the proper size there will be less trouble in monitoring it, less to steal, less encroachment. This is what the real issue is at present. It is grass-roots movements, like the Teaparty, that have grasped this, however dimly. The major parties ignore this insight at the peril of splitting, and their ultimate demise, and nothing we can do will stop it.

Written 21 Aug 2010.

Big Bone University: A Think Tank, Research Institute, & Public Policy Center
Established 2000 A. D.
Nec ossa solum, sed etiam sanguinem.
Big Bone, Kentucky
jkduvall@gmail.com

I suggest that not only are people who run agencies of the government robbing us, often through legal means, such as the false “compensating tax rate”, but that the government is robbing the economy. It is stifling the sources of growth while pretending to stimulate growth. Sectors of the economy, such as transportation, industry, and banking, that no longer drive the economy are given deference over the private initiative that is not so obviously “economic”, but such “stimulus” is at their expense, and hurts their growth. Innovation today is in private sector knowledge work—knowledge industries, research, technology, information, and education—and none of these are a primary function of government.


AQQ: Archival Quality Quotation:

“The primary fantasy of our time is to escape catastrophe by building an ark or founding an apocalyptic colony far removed from the collapse of civilization.”
William Irwin Thompson, Passages About Earth (1974), p. 58.

Livin' Off the Fat of the Land

An Essay On Library Bureaucrats, the Taj Mahal, and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon


James Duvall, M. A.
Big Bone University

At my house we often sing a little song I wrote, called “Livin' Off the Fat of the Land”. I play piano while my six oldest sing at the top of their lungs. The chorus goes:

It feels mighty grand,
Livin' off the fat of the land.

I suggest to you that this would be a good Teaparty theme song, because a lot of our tax-spending bureaucrats are doing exactly that — livin' off the fat of the land, without much regard to whether the rest of us eat or not.

This week I went with a group of Teaparty members to protest a tax-increase. I am interested in anything to do with Libraries, and this was at the Kenton County Public Library, where I, like some of the others, am a card-carrying member. Like so many people I am normally at work at 9.30 in the morning. Fortunately, I am out of work, and so was able to accept Garth's invitation to attend.

I did not intend to speak, but when my turn came I felt compelled to speak up for all the parents who couldn't be there because they work, but still do not have the funds for additional taxes right now. You have to have your head above water in order to live off the fat of the land.

Library Board Meetings are normally very exclusive affairs. Like so many government activities, they can be quite boring, and normally are, unless you you happen to have a personal interest (as we did this day), or are one of that class of person who happen to like that sort of thing. (Shouldn't their heads be examined?)


Names and Faces for the Board

The Board consists of the following individuals, a number of whom are closely associated with Northern Kentucky University. Lois Schultz, President, Jim Adams, Vice-President, Jim Horner, Treasurer, Tony Milburn, Secretary, and Susan Mospens. Additional addendees were Charlotte MacIntosh, Regional Librarian for the Kentucky Department of Library and Archives, a financial adviser, Dave Schroeder, the Director of the Library, and an assistant.

We were invited in almost as soon as we arrived by the President, Mrs. Schultz. She began a list of those who wished to speak. This is not strictly necessary, and State Law provides that those who wish to speak at Public Meetings are not required to identify themselves. The first speaker was asked to begin almost immediately. The Board was there to get this part over as soon as possible. People were making good statements, and very much to the point. I felt the situation was very difficult; I had met a few of the people we were speaking to before, but a lot of them I didn't know. I was the forth of fifth person on the list, so I rose when my turn came and said: “I always like to have names and faces on my bureaucrats; could each of you tell us who you are, and your position.”

Mrs. Schultz, a handsome lady I had met briefly years ago, apologized and requested each person at the table to introduce themselves. I believe that Ms. MacIntosh went first. I remember her once telling me about her adventures in old barns and attics in West Tennessee tracking down copies of Confederate newspapers that hadn't been seen since they were printed — much more interesting than Board Meetings! Then there was, according to my sketchy notes, Mr. Milburn, looking at us over the top of his glasses, as if we were a hostile jury. There's a reason for that; he's a lawyer, with one of those big Cincinnati firms. Next, I think, was Mr. Horner, a man with silver hair, and a rosy round face that looked very nice whenever he finally got around to smiling. He insisted at one point, “We are conservative in our expenditures.” But that was not proved on this day.

Then there was the gracious Lois, presiding at the center of the group. And then, beside her, was Susan Mospens, who appeared to be irritated once or twice, but managed mostly to appear unfazed by our intrusion; get it over with, and get on to business. Then there was Mr. Adams, associated, I believe, like Mrs. Schultz, with NKU. He looked a little like Uncle Al, or perhaps your sixth grade teacher. Perhaps that's what he was dozens of years ago; in fact he probably sounded a bit like a not-very-well-informed teacher when he made the motion to “lower the tax rate(!)” to 11.6%. The accompanying remarks made about as much sense; such remarks as “this is the best balanced solution”, and “we can't have it all my way; we can't have it all your way!” (He got his way—this time; we need eliminate his independence of the voters!)

At the table furthest from me sat Dave Schroeder, the Director, between his able assistant and a financial adviser. Mr. S. has worked for the Library for twenty years. He is a very nice person—he was a little nervous this day, I think, but he handled himself well. He is a very informed person, and it is a virtual certainty that he knows more about Covington and Kenton County history and genealogy than anyone else in the world. I did not catch the name of his assistant or the financial adviser. Evidently the adviser had told them it was a very good financial deal for the Library to raise taxes; at least for them. This, then, was the major cast of characters. Would anything we had to say be able to change their minds? At least we had gained something. By knowing who they were the situation became more personal, and I will say that all the comments made from people both for and against the proposed raise in taxes, were received attentively by the Board.

Most of the speeches were not lengthy. Mine might have lasted three minutes, perhaps less. Time moves strangely when you stand up to speak. I recall pointing out that even if the project were a good one this is not the right time to raise taxes. Someone brought out a copy of the budget (Kenton is almost the only Library in the State that publishes its budget online. That is a good thing!), and someone else had a chart showing how much the taxes for the Library had gone up in the last decade. Dr. MacElheny delivered a rousting speech, following one almost as good by her husband. As a CPA he mentioned that he often audited small businesses, many of which are right on the edge — this might be enough to cause them to fail. (After all $11 million sucks a lot out of a local economy.) Dr. Mac got applause when she spoke, especially when she came to the part about the astronomical rise in health care (that's her baby!). A lovely lady, a Council-woman for Independence, spoke movingly about living on a fixed income, which had been halved, and about 30% of which went to pay for her healthcare insurance. Such common situations in these days are important to take into consideration when it comes to taxation for any purpose.

Not every person there was opposed to the tax; some spoke for it. With maybe one exception (am I just imagining this?), the people for the tax were bitter, and some of them spoke almost angrily. One ugly talking person, who I would say looked like a little old man, but that would be insulting to little old men, took occasion to disparage my seven children and myself in the course of her little diatribe. Why does such an one need to insult others to make her point? I would suppose we are all glad she doesn't have seven children—they might all be like her. I wonder why she didn't get as much applause as some of those opposed to the tax?

We had there also two candidates for Kenton County Judge Executive. Mr. Arlinghaus commented that the Library takes in approximately as much as the rest of the county government combined. Mrs. McDowell pointed out that our children—for whom the project is supposedly being done—are going to inherit a huge debt. (How are they going to enjoy it in a few years when they are going to spend all of their time paying for it?) It might be better to let them decide how they want to spend their money, and perhaps the best thing we can give the next generation is a good example, by not spending beyond our means!

At one point one of the Board Members, I think Ms. Mospens, said, “We're taxpayers, too!” That is true also, but as I pointed out to someone after the meeting, they are spending their own money, as well as other people's.

Probably the most stunning observation I have to make concerns the false “compensating tax rate” that is so blatant an offense in the faces of the taxpayers of Kentucky. Mr. Schroeder read this tortuously worded piece of legalize to us, and then stated that it meant the Board could not receive less taxes than it had the year before! In other words, this piece of legislation, originally proposed to protect us from an increase of more than 4%, and which has done so much damage in robbing us, is now being used to say that legally the Board must raise taxes!

I don't know what you think of this, but it was too much for me. Perhaps it was very rude of me, and if so I apologize humbly to Mr. S., to the Board, and to the Public at Large, both taxpaying, and non-taxpaying; but I interjected the remark: “You don't have to raise the tax rate at all!” I thought that this devilishly worded document meant that if the tax-rate was to be raised it could not produce less than approximately what it had the year before. Now bureaucrats are reading it to prove that they have to raise the tax rate each year, by law. This means only one thing. We as taxpayers must press our Legislature to change this infamous law. That way I will never have an excuse to be rude at a Board Meeting again, at least not about taxes.

Let me say that I understand why Mr. S. wants a better facility. It is not even that I think the project is a bad thing in itself. The money could be spent for worse projects. The question here was is this the time to do it?

The Board thought so. Mr. Best-Balanced-Solution even stated: “We need to take advantage of these economic conditions.” I take it he meant interest rates, not the working (or lack) of the people expected to pay for it. The fact is that the outcome of the vote was predetermined, not by secret conspiracy—that is beyond anything I could possibly consider—but by how much the Board had already invested in the project, psychologically and otherwise. They had to get through the Public Hearing, but nothing said could affect the outcome:

It feels mighty grand,
Livin' off the fat of the land.

Mr. Horner also issued a challenge for those of us from Boone County. (This was a practice session for us. We are sharpening our Library cards as I write.) He said: “This is not Boone County—and this Board is not responsible for what happened in Boone County!” Whether this referred to the Taj Mahal, or the temporary tax reduction to 5%, is unclear; but we are equal to the challenge.


Changing the Situation

Board Members of any entity that can tax must be directly responsible to the taxpayers. Mr. Horner's statement about the “best balanced solution” was followed by the remark that this was a “compromise” that balanced “all constituencies”. The people who pay should have the say! Children, the homeless, computer users, book borrowers, program attenders, etc are not “constituencies”, they are recipients, whether it is you, me, or anyone else. A constituency is by definition a “body of voters”, not people who want or use something. (Though bureaucrats are famous for changing the meaning of words!) The only real constituency of a Board should be the taxpayers. In theory the Board represents them, but the voters must also make it so in practice. Obviously this is not now the case; but it would be if these people had to stand for election. As it is in every case, of which I am aware, the Board scratches the Director's back, and he or she makes sure not to rub them the wrong way. (See my essay on this subject: "Then There Are Five" )

No one can make it to the meetings of all the Boards that can raise taxes. I think they should all take place in a single location (say the Fiscal Court Meeting Room), on the same day each year. Perhaps on Election Day, when everyone is feeling Civic Minded, each Board could be given an hour or two to make their case for a raise in revenue, if it is really necessary. All employers could be encouraged to let people have the day off to go to the meetings; we might even start to get a little more citizen participation in government, as in the old time Court Days, that were attended by all.

We need some PIGs (Public Information Gatherers) to attend these meetings and take notes, or even record them; after all, they are public. We need all the information we can get. Even this essay is written from a few notes and what I remember; with all the good will in the world my impressions are not as valuable as solid truth, such as would be possible if it were packed chock full of accurate and informative statements. (Incidently I have been told my writings might appeal to old people, so if you enjoyed this at all you know where you stand!)

So, was our visit to the Board wasted? Certainly not. Could the Board rescind its decision? Certainly. Epictetus, the great Greco-Roman philosopher, who started life as a slave, once remarked that the only prescription for refusing to change your mind when you are wrong is Hellabore; they administered it in those days to lunatics. So far as living to fight another day, my grandfather used to say if you get knocked down in a fight, start on their toes! Never give up! Learn from whatever happens, and be better prepared next time. Better yet, work to make the rules fair—let's work to make Boards accountable through the election process, revoke the murderous “compensating tax rate”, which is false, and create a better America. Once the bureaucrats on the Boards are responsible to the taxpayers I care not whether they decide to build the Taj Mahal, the Tomb of King Tut, or the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, so long as a great majority of the taxpayers agree. (Well, I will still care, but at least I will not feel so bad about it.) Then, maybe, the last line of my song will come true for all:

It's almost more than I can stand;
Livin' off the fat of the land.

Written 18 Aug 2010.

Big Bone University: A Think Tank, Research Institute, & Public Policy Center
Established 2000 A. D.
Nec ossa solum, sed etiam sanguinem.
Big Bone, Kentucky

jkduvall@gmail.com

To Those Who Attended the Meeting:

I regret I cannot recall the speeches of everyone present who spoke. If you care to write out what you said, or think you said (which might be even better), I would be happy to include it here. Thank you for your contribution to the discussion; you represent many others who were unable to attend.

Note that Boone County is getting ready to build a new facility in accordance with the “Five Mile Plan”. It will cost more than the one Kenton County proposes to build. Let's take Mr. Horner's advice, and make the Boone County Board of Trustees responsible for that. Perhaps we should start before they get too much invested in the project.


AQQ: Archival Quality Quotation:

“. . . and the people shall labour in vain, and the folk in the fire, and they shall be weary.” Jeremiah 51.58.

Typed 21 Aug 2010.

An Essay on Libraries and (Tax) Liabilities

An Essay on Libraries and (Tax) Liabilities; or,Boone County's Taj Mahal and the Bad Book Tax

James Duvall, M. A.
Big Bone University

Libraries are very little understood by the general public. People don't know what they do, or what they have available. “Libraries are about books,” is a widely held idea, and not without reason; however, modern libraries are often about a lot of other things, and books come in as a distant focus, which should become obvious in the course of this essay.

I worked for the Boone County Public Library for seven and a half years, and can claim to have some knowledge of the subject. I certainly think the mystery needs to be taken out of the subject, and so I am working on a book, currently in draft, called “the Extraordinary History of the Boone County Public Library, Boone County, Kentucky, with Special Remarks on the Taj Mahal and Citizens for Lower Taxes”. I feel that I am the only person qualified to write this work. It falls within the scope of the work I was doing for the library, a massive project called the Annals of Boone County, which includes every aspect of Boone County history and genealogy.

My research is not yet complete for the history of the library, and I am not yet in a position to tell all I know. Some things I only suspect. Some of these waters are deep, and one can only draw out the truth by evidence that will mirror the sometimes murky waters of the mind. It it true here, no less than in other aspects of politics and government spending, that there is a kind of mad methodology in the muddiness.

Let me first say that I do not oppose libraries; I love them. When I went to Washington, D. C., the first place I visited was the Library of Congress; a truly impressive collection of books, maps, and manuscripts. I have used many of the local university libraries, including their rare book rooms. These include the Klau Library of Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, one of the three great repositories of Judaica in the world, and the largest outside of Jerusalem; I am a graduate of the college. I have researched in the Lloyd Library, also in Cincinnati (though it has Northern Kentucky roots), one of the world's premier collections of pharmacology and materia medica. University of Cincinnati. Northern Kentucky University. The libraries at the University of Kentucky, and the Kentucky Archives, and State Historical Society Library, among many others.

I love a good collection of books, but I am opposed to waste. I like good libraries. Good libraries are those that serve the public, and serve their purpose, rather than the egos and advancement of their administrators. A good library is about books. The public always knew this, but many of our professional librarians and “highly qualified” administrators seem to have forgotten this.

Library administrators, that is Directors, and a few other people, will argue that libraries are about service. And this is perfectly correct, so long as we are clear about what the service actually is; however service is an area in which they are deficient, for the most part. It can be very hard to get good service in most public libraries. It is not guaranteed by the fact that the person serving you has an MLS degree (Master of Library Science). This degree, though required for most of the better positions, is a very inferior degree. It is a “systems” degree, concentrating on process rather than content. You don't have to be very smart, or even read much of anything, except the dull text books, and do a few “projects” to get the degree.

Many of the people with whom I worked were knowledgeable in a number of area, and were concerned to help anyone who asked them for help. Good librarians tend to develop area of special interest and expertise, and were always willing to learn. I enjoyed working with these people; but there were significant exceptions. I might understand why, but I never appreciated a colleague who rolled their eyes as certain patrons left the desk. We got some odd requests from time to time; but the real problem is that most Reference people do not know very much about books.

I recently came across a statement in a book that applies here: “Most of the famous people I have met have their feet firmly planted in mid-air.” For “famous people” read “librarians” and you have a perfect description of the bulk of the breed.

Someone once called the library to ask how to season a skillet. The person who picked it up didn't even attempt an answer, they just passed the telephone to me. I didn't have (or need) a reference book on the subject; I just told them how I season mine, and mentioned several other methods I had observed, been told or, or had read about. This person said they liked my method best, which was flattering; but you have to have experience and common sense to answer that kind of question.

You have to study real subjects to be able to recommend books that will help someone after significant information. You have to be able to look at the cover and the publisher, and other indications, to tell if this is a book of value, or one of the many advice books so bad you could die of a misprint. Mid-air people don't have the experience or qualifications to make these types of judgments, which the public pays for, and on which they rely. It is acknowledged in the library journals that about 75% of the Reference questions asked in U. S. libraries receive incorrect answers (if my memory serves); I may be giving an incorrect answer here — the true figure is closer to 85%.

Most reference people are tied to the computer for basic information, and for the catalogue of books (which we all need often enough). They don't have any sense (to speak of) about what is available on the subject, and what is more important, what the library might have.

Speaking of this subject (before I proceed to talk about the Taj Mahal, and its rather pitiful collection of books): There is a real lack of good books in the Boone County Public Library. This is partly by design, and partly through ignorance about what the best books are. I have not used the Kenton County much for years. I lived in Latonia for ten years, and often used it them. The collection at that time was much better than that of Boone County. There were at least a few solid books on almost every subject in which I happened to be interested. (This would include just about any subject you might think of.)

My impression is that this quality was due mostly to the influence of Ms. Mary Ann Mongan, the long-time library Director. How much the collection might have changed since that time I can only guess. When I am there I deal primarily with the excellent collection of Kentucky History, but this has been there for years, and is hardly a good guide to the state of the collection as a whole.

I suspect that Boone County is not the only public library around that is lacking in what should be its primary feature and purpose. Most of the books are new; if they age much they are usually thrown away and replaced by new books of inferior value, if you are considering content rather than retail value. Many of the books have catchy titles, but are short on substance. For example you can get a history of sunflowers, but no commentary on the Bible. You can check out a series that includes “Aristotle in Fifteen Minutes” (which is impossible), but not one book written by a real philosopher. You can get every recent book in print on witchcraft, but there is only one volume in the whole library on anthropology, and it is not very good. The mathematics section is particularly poor, though books on the subject are often requested. We are talking about all the branches here.

I have a graduate degree in history (besides the one in Bible and Ancient Languages), and have found only a few books in the collection having any solid worth; nothing that even covers “world history” that I could recommend. The section on language (my favourite) is not worse than that of most small public libraries, but nothing much to brag about. At my suggestion a Greek dictionary, and a few other books were acquired and added. There are a few good books on the sciences; a good bit of it is little more than trash. Most of the best books have never found a home here. I don't mean the kind of books demanded and written by research scientists; I mean ordinary works that actually cover the subject, in writing. The “Illustrated Book of Stars” and “The Complete Idiot's Guide to Traveling in Black Holes”, are not the kind of thing for people who really want to know. I don't have an MLS, but I know better than that.

We do have a nice history of the Taj Mahal (the real one). I remember putting it out on display once, when the controversy about the new library was at its height, and it found its way back to the shelf rather quickly, to spend a life of indolence. It was rather an interesting book, lots of pictures. I could go into great detail about other sections of the collection. The Literature section is actually in rather good shape, except the high school students never can find much on Shakespeare for their yearly assignment, for there is only one book on the subject they can use! It is thanks to one or two literature-loving librarians that this area has been kept up fairly well, one of whom has now passed to the great “Library of the Infinite”. The section on religion is the worst in the library. Don't get me started on this subject — go and look for yourself!

I wrote a plan to correct this problem. It had enough promise, even on the face of it, that copies were distributed to everyone on the Selection Committee (though probably not read), by order of the Director. However, nothing was done to improve selection. The feeling seems to have been that it is more important to buy books than to improve the collection. (Link: Notes on Book Selection)

So what about the Taj Mahal on Wildcat Blvd.? The building of that come as a surprise to everyone, certainly the public. (I had heard vague rumors.) This was because the public was not aware of the “Five Mile Plan”, which is still in effect. This was an agenda agreed on by Lucinda Brown, the former Director, and Ted Bushelman, back in the day when he was president of the Board of Trustees, to put a library facility within five miles of every resident in Boone County. That is going to cost you more than you realize, sooner or later!

The Taj was the crown jewel in this plan, though it was but three miles from an existing facility in Hebron. However, you will be happy to know that this thriving, and much used branch, is going to be axed, and a new one built at Francisville, a few miles further north. The branch built at Union was a bargain at $5 million, I was told; and that included building and contents. The fifty acres of land for the new one have already been purchased for $3.1 million. I have seen the initial sketches for this building. It will be at least as large as the branch at Union, and I estimate it will cost over $10 million. Probably this includes the contents also. It doesn't include the staff. I estimate that it will take about fifty people, full and part time. I can assure you that your taxes will go up considerable when the present library staff of about 150 begins to approach 200.

Libraries are about books, not buildings. No one is arguing that you can have books with no place to put them, but here the emphasis seems to be all on buildings. They say people aren't interested in books, so the have programs to draw them in. These include concerts, yoga, magicians, food-crafting (from people who don't even know how to season a skillet?), and even sleep-overs. You have to have something in a building that big to justify the expenditure, so you spent more to drag people in. It is true that people come to the library to use the Internet and computers. It is a nice service; I sometimes use it myself, as I do not have Internet at home. I still think $18 million is a little expensive for an Internet Café. My dentists office is nice, but not so costly as that — why not offices all around the county that are rented by the year, and closed if they don't get much use? People could order their books online, and pick them up within five miles of home! Why invest so heavily in one spot?

Why not at least ask the public, particularly the taxpayers, what they really want?

Why keep these big productions secret until the Director and the “secret Trustees” roll them out for our expected applause? Why not concentrate on books and media — downloadable books (I know the value of all kinds of books), DVDs, recorded books, periodicals, and traditional children's programs, rather than have specialized banquets at $20 a plate, or exercise programs with enrollment fees of $25 to $35. That excludes the underpriviledged. Why should taxpayers underwrite a huge building with a club atmosphere that discriminates against poor citizens? Why should we have programs there at all that are not directly concerned with books? If the programs are for the public why should individuals have to pay at all? Why not concentrate on the reason libraries even exist, rather than create new demands from a limited public, while ignoring or downplaying the true purpose of a library?

Call to Action

There is a very great deal more that I could say, and perhaps will say in my “Extraordinary History” of the subject. I will be glad to personally discuss this subject with any reasonable person (that is anyone who doesn't yell or cuss). There is a basis flaw in the Statues which govern the administration of Kentucky's Public Libraries that often doesn't show up as long as library systems are small; but it needs to be fixed. And now is the time to fix it! Library Trustees should be directly accountable to the public. They should be elected just as the members of the School Board are. In theory the Board controls the Library. In actuality the Director controls the Board. The Board needs to be in a position to demand accountability from the Director and Staff.

I have written a detailed essay on the subject of how Library Boards are appointed. (Link: “Then There Are Five”) They are chosen by the Director, and approved in a rubber-stamp process. It is possible to impeach Trustees by action of the Fiscal Court; but it is not possible. Trustees have a right to appeal this action through the State Courts, and iffy and endless process, which means that practially speaking they cannot be ousted before their term expires. In essence they are untouchable.

Anyone with authority to raise and spend your taxes needs to be accountable to you!

Written 16 Aug 2010.

Archival Quality Quotation:

“We're not sure yet whether the new library will be another Taj Mahal, or the Tomb of King Tut. Either way, there will be a lot of Lucinda Brown's carefully hoarded tax money spent. In both cases the money was spent without your consent!”

Kathryn James
Teacher and Teaparty Member

Big Bone University: A Think Tank, Research Institute, & Public Policy Center
Established 2000 A. D.
Nec ossa solum, sed etiam sanguinem.
Big Bone, Kentucky

jkduvall@gmail.com

Then There Are Five

“And Then There Are Five”
or,
How a Library Board is Appointed


James Duvall, M. A.
Big Bone University

One would think the Director of a Public Library wold have nothing to do with appointing the Library Board of Trustees; after all, they are her boss. In reality, she has everything to do with it. The way the system works the Director hand-picks the people who set her salary, decide the budget, and the tax-rates for the district, and rubber stamp nearly all of her decisions.

It works like this: The Boards of Trustees consists of five members who serve two year rotating terms; one or two must be appointed every other year. The Director proposes two names of her choice to the Board, all the members of which she has picked in a similar manner if she has been Director any time at all, to replace any departing member. (This proposal of two names for each position to be filled has a hoary antiquity, and was inherited from the time before 1792 when Kentucky was still part of Virginia.) In the vast majority of cases the Board rubber-stamps this recommendation, which is then sent to the Director of the Kentucky Department of Library and Archives (KDLA), who again rubber-stamps it — at least a nominee has never been known to have been turned down — and sends it to the Governor. This individual signs the papers, and would only turn down a recommendation if the first proposed name were known to be a political foe, in which case the second name would be approved instead; usually those proposed are either political friends, or nonentities that the Governor would never even have heard of, and then his rubber-stamped recommendation is sent to the local Fiscal Court. Guess what happens there? Whereas yesterday there were only three or four members of the Board, they again rubber-stamp the Director's choice, and then there are five.

This means that the Director has effectively selected her won bosses, and in the majority of cases, certainly in our county, the Board allows the Director to do just about anything she wants, such as the “Five Mile Plan” in which the Director and “Her Board” (Yes, every Director speaks of the Trustees as “My Board”, and with very good reason.) has decided that there needs to be a huge Library building within five miles of the home of every Boone County citizen. In some places there are still great restrictions on what a Director can do, but not in Boone County.

The whole process is one big, mechanical rubber-stamp, and the public (read “voters”) has no say in the process. Boone Countians have no choice, and are not even told how this Board-Director plans to spend literally millions of dollars of their tax money every year. And no input when these people decide to invest in new buildings that cost over ten million dollars, not including the land. Such a scheme has often been referred to as a “self-perpetuating Board”, and in one sense it is; but it is actually a handpicked Board — a Director's dream — or taxpayer's nightmare — depending on your point of view.

I said above that in some places there are still great restrictions on what a Director can do, this is not because she (in a few cases it is a he) does not have the Board in her pocket, but because the County is poor, and there is not much money. That is not the case here. Whereas many Counties are content to have one medium sized facility, or in a few cases a branch or two, Boone County has six locations and the “Five Mile Plan”. A facility that will cost more than $10 million dollars is now reached the stage of having the initial blueprints drawn. $3.1 million dollars has been spent already to buy fifty acres of land on which to place this facility. I have seen the initial drawings, which are not available for public inspection. In fact I have yet to speak to anyone from Boone County, not associated with the Library, who is aware of the plan, or the new facility, which the Board has already approved, though major details concerning its design and style are still to be worked out.

Some measure of fiscal responsibility was forced on the Board due to the efforts of District Judge Candidate Rick Bruggemann, who got enough signatures to put a 5% limit on the Library property tax rate. Acting quickly, former Director Lucinda Brown decided to lower the rates, which had gradually reached remarkably high levels, to 5%; the Board, as might be expected, rubber-stamped this decision. The Library avoided a referendum on the issue (which would have limited the ability of the Board to raise the rates over a much longer term), and County Attorney Robert Neace issued the opinion (I think rightly), that since the vote would not actually change the rates (now the exact figure of the proposed limit), it need not be placed on the ballot. The rates can still go up in the near future, since the Board is empowered by State Law to raise them one and a half percent per year without a referendum (that is how they got so high in the first place), so in several years the rate may be as high as it was before, and most people will not even be aware of how it happened. I feel the public owes a great deal to Rick Bruggemann, and some people who think like him, and I hope they will make their pleasure known in November.

The $18 million facility on Burlington Pike, known semi-affectionately as the “Taj Mahal” (It is actually on Wildcat Boulevard, so I call it the “Taj on Wildcat”.), as most people know, features a copper dome. I must say here that I do not actually object to the dome; I am tired of libraries that look like rejected school houses from the 1960s. I happen to agree with Ms. Brown in her statement to the assembled Library staff before the new building was ever built: “I think a public building should look like a public building!” I do not object to the dome, or even the building (though I think it is inconvenient, and difficult to get around in; a lot of it is wasted space.) I think the time may come when many people in Boone County are proud of this building as many years ago when a child in Lexington I loved the old Public Library there: It was built of marble, and had pillars in front — it looked like a real Library, much more so than this one; but that was another era. What I object to about this building is the way it was done and foisted off on the public. The citizens of Boone County were not aware a new building was going to be built; the actual meetings were kept secret.

No one was asked to give an opinion about a dome, or anything else about the building; it came as a surprise to the community, and the Director was shocked that not everyone appreciated the gift she had given them with public money. The negative publicity was why she decided to retire before she was ready; she didn't want to take the heat for the new building in Hebron. It is my guess that a significant percent of the population in Boone County would like to be able to express an opinion about what the new building should look like, and how much it should cost; presumably it will not have a copper dome.

The copper dome on the Taj Mahal, in my opinion, has saved the County untold millions of dollars, and a heap of political boondoggling. This is due to the fact that it was the rallying cry for the opposition to the infamous “Parks Tax”. Thanks to PVA Cindy Arlinghaus Rich, and to County Clerk Candidate Kenny Brown, and the Boone County Tea Party, this proposal to tax and spend an amount that makes the dome look like a picnic basket in comparison went down to ignominious defeat. Again, I hope the voters will make their pleasure known in November, and it was the protest lead by these two responsible citizens, and by Commissioner Kathy Flaig, who made that a reality. It was the initiative lead by Mr. Bruggemann, in my opinion, that focused public attention on the whole issue of taxation, and showed that it was possible to override the Tax-&-Spend crew who have grabbed the reigns of power.

There has been an attempt to enact legislation in Frankfort to make Library Boards and Fire District Board accountable to the Fiscal Courts. Kenny Brown has testified before the Legislature to get this accomplished, but it will not happen unless there is a major infusion of minority power into the Legislature, and this is sorely need to equalize many other issues. In my opinion a far more logical solution to this problem is not to turn more authority over to the Fiscal Courts, but to make Board Members subject to the election process, and thus make them subject to the will of the people. It may be initially more expensive to hold elections, but it is likely to save a massive amount in the long run. The present system was set up to shield Boards and Directors from the public; that may be nice for them, but how do we make them accountable? As you know the Fiscal Court has issues aplenty, and does not particularly care to add the additional responsibility of setting rates for the Library, and the many Fire Districts in the County. School Board members run, and they devour much more of our money than the Library or the Fire Districts; but at least the Superintendent of Schools does not appoint his own bosses; and if his bosses do not answer to the people in some fashion at least, they can be gotten rid of at the next election.

Elections in Boone County cost more than $180,000 a year, how much more could it cost to add a few more Board members to that? If members were elected to the Board the taxpayers would be in a fair way to get control of the Libraries, that is, exactly what the present laws are designed to prevent. While I think Directors do not need to be necessarily subjected to every whim of the public, and it is nice if they stay on awhile, I think they should be courageous in presenting their plans to the public; we are not all as bad as they seem to think. Why not tell the public what you plan to do? If your plans are good the public will propose the funds necessary, after all the public initiated the idea of having a Library in the first place. As it is, disinterest Board membership means they have no motivation or responsibility for what they do. The Director has motivation to hide important decisions until they present the public with a fait accompli, then, as with the 5% tax rate, it is to late to do anything about it. I suggest that if there were between 6 and 12 Board Members, with the two senior members going off each year. On the petition of 100 taxpaying citizens of the County the entire Board could be replaced in a general election in any given year. The right of petition would give the Board reason to listen to the public. The numbers and the rotation would give the Director enough stability to do her job effectively without controlling the Board, as is currently the case. The current Board of Trustees of Boone County Public Library

Alice Ryle, President
Pam Goetting, Vice-president
Nancy Grayson, Secretary
Chris Grubbs
Jim Henning
Greta Southard, Director
Branches: Florence, Scheben (Union), Lents (Hebron), Walton, Burlington (Main), Chapin (Petersburg).

Additional Remarks on Libraries

“Libraries have always been a weapon in the war of culture (Kulturkampf); that is as true today as it ever was; however, today the war, in many cases, is waged by the lower culture against the higher, even though it may retain some of the trappings of prestige. This is unprecedented.”

Heinrich Adler, The Past in the Present,trans. by Mason Hamilton (Caria Books, 1985), vol. 2, p. 123.

“It does not help matters that we are out of sympathy with the architects's rich clients, who so often commissioned the mansions, the factories and office buildings, and sat on the boards and committees that ordered the museums, the libraries, and the clubhouses. We think of these wealthy people as selfish and pretentious, conceited and foolish, and
their patronage seems to damn doubly the eclectic architecture they commissioned, regarding it as suitable to their self-image and life style.”

Walter C. Kidney, The Architecture of Choice
(Brazillier Books, 1974), p. 67.

It is my opinion that politics is but history in the making, and that both the past and the present can be best understood by being studied together.

James Duvall, M. A. is the Director of Big Bone University, a Think Tank, History Research Institute, and Public Policy Center, located at Big Bone, Kentucky. James is the former Local History Research Specialist for the Boone County Public Library, and is currently engaged in a massive research and writing project, which he plans to publish as a multi-volume work to be entitled The History of Big Bone, and Southern Boone County, Kentucky, several volumes of which are nearly ready for publication. If you have any comments on the above article, or information, photographs, or artifacts relating to Big Bone, you may contact him at jkduvall@gmail.com.

Book Selection Boone County Public Library

Notes Concerning the Book Selection Process
Boone County Public Library

James Duvall, M. A.
Reference Department
30 August 2006

Introduction

A new selection process has come to my attention. I am not aware of exactly what the process is or how it was put in place, but I was asked for my approval of books on certain lists. This does not seem to me a satisfactory manner of deciding what books we do or do not place in the library. My impression is that there are no controls on what gets ordered, and there does not seem to be much input at the initial decision level. Since I am not aware of what the process actually is this is not intended as a criticism of the new system. I will start from scratch and say what I think a good system would be for our library. This is a general plan and can incorporate the ideas of anyone who is familiar with what is involved in acquisition of materials for the library. I also add that I am not interested in overseeing the process, but in contributing to discussion of how we can get the best collection possible for our goals.

Critique of Old System

The prior system was in use for a number of years and provided the library with many useful items. There were some problems with the system, but it worked well enough that it seems appropriate to critique that system and see if its best qualities can be incorporated, or at least duplicated by any new system adopted. My experience with the old system was more limited than it should be to provide a comprehensive evaluation, but I know enough to point out certain deficiencies, as well as good points of the system, and those who know more than I can remedy any defective analysis.

If I had one single criticism to make of the old system it would be that it concentrated on the acquisition of books to the exclusion of weeding or retiring them. There should be a planned withdrawal any time there is a massive scheme of acquisition, such as our yearly purchases of new materials.

Here are a few other problems:

There were too many selectors. Most selectors meet with the committee only once or twice a year, and most of the selecting activity (while taking place throughout the year) was concentrated in the month or so before the selection of their area.

There was an emphasis on the large number of books initially chosen by the selector rather than quality of fitness for the collection.

Most selectors had no particular expertise in their areas of selection, and they did not do it enough to build experience.

There was little outside input aside from recommendation forms, and possibly topic slips, which are actually generated within the system.

There was not always a broad enough diversity of materials to select from to get the best possible collection.

There was no specific co-ordinator of the process (aside from the duties exercised by Pat). These duties ideally should include training of selectors, and overseeing all selection policy, such as weeding and detecting weaknesses (gaps) in the current collection.
The old system ended up with too many duplicate items with extremely low circulation. Weeding of low circulation duplicates was a “catch as catch can” method which had little or nothing to do with acquisition.
Different areas of the library: fiction, non-fiction, audiovisual materials, databases, etc., seem to have been selected by different methods.

There was no method of retaining items of particular value that we wished to retain in the system, especially low circulating items, as Kentucky books, and literary classics that should be available to students and others even if the demand is low.


Good Points about the Old System

I think one of the best points of the old system was that the branch managers formed the selection committee. They are very in touch with what their public wants and requests on a regular basis. This is a strength that should be retained and capitalized on.

Also:

There were a large number of people involved in the selection process. I said that there were too many selectors, but that is not such a weakness as not having enough people involved in the process.
Many people took a real interest in their assigned categories and worked to make the best possible selection.

The division of categories meant that is was likely that someone you work with regularly had a hand in the selection and could offer help if someone needed a book in that area. In other words there was a kind of diffusion of knowledge about the materials in that area.

The system was economical because it used only a few vendors. We got a lot of good books. The complaints from the public about what we have is (to my knowledge) minimal, though perhaps we don’t always know exactly what they think. As our collection grows larger this is going to become more of a factor: Largeness brings higher expectations.

There are probably others I have overlooked.


What Do We Need?

Our critique of the old system suggests what we should be looking for in the new. Here is a summary of the main points:

There should be people in touch with the needs of the public who make the actual selections.

Selectors should have expertise in their areas of selection, and should be able to develop experience selecting in their areas. They should have an interest in the areas for which they select over a period of time. They should be involved in selection four or five times a year, or even more often, and their duties should involve “special projects”.
There should be a large number of people involved in the process, though not all of them should be selectors.

Emphasis should be on quality and appropriateness for our collection.
There should be built into the system a method by which the item would be evaluated at a scheduled time.

In addition attention should be paid to the collection as a whole. There should be a “barebones” or core collection of books of permanent value, which may be replaced, but only by materials of similar content and value.


Elements of a Possible System

There are several elements I consider necessary for a system which will lead to the best results.

The Acquisitions Librarian - This may not seem necessary since the old system did not have one. I think that this is a very necessary part of the system. The person should be very knowledgeable about books and what the public wants and needs. The librarian should guide the process, set policy, encourage participation, provide training, and (most important of all, perhaps) be responsible for the results. I think this is the only way to insure that the new process is really new and stays on track

The Selectors - This was an important aspect in the old system, and should be even more important in the new. I think the number of selectors should be limited to about six people. These people should be reference people who are well acquainted with books, and should have a good sense of what the public wants and needs, as well as deficiencies in our current collection. The reason for holding down the number of selectors is so that they can become better trained, gain more experience, and become a focus of diffusion of knowledge about the collection to the rest of the staff. I would suggest that selectors be rigorously selected themselves. I think they should take a test, take training, receive a subscription to a literary type of journal (each of the six receiving a different journal and sharing), and perhaps a small increase in pay when actually doing selection, to emphasize its importance. Perhaps replacement selectors could be added by vote of the current participants in the task force, once it is certain the qualifications have been met.

The Selection Committee - This we identified as one of the strongest features of the old system, and I think it should be left in place. It should be composed of perhaps six people. The branch managers should all be included, perhaps on a rotating basis as our number of branches grows. I think at least one Selector should be on the Committee, in addition to the presenting Selector, so that at least two of the Selectors would be present at every actual selection meeting. This Committee probably should not grow too large, as that is extra expense to the library, and little is to be gained by having a large Committee if the initial lists for presentation are done right.

Additional Input - Every effort should be made to get the input of the public and of educators. I would suggest offering a questionnaire to anyone who is routinely interested in certain kinds of books (see example of questionnaire below). Teachers of honors classes in particular should be solicited to find out the types of books they are discussing, and what they think would enhance their programs. Offer discussion groups on certain topics and use that as a means to generate suggestions. Send selectors to bookstores and other libraries, or do-it-yourself stores, to discuss what is selling or being checked out there, and what kinds of questions people are asking.


The Problem of Withdrawing Materials

The area that should be of greatest concern to an Acquisitions Librarian is that of weeding and withdrawing materials that have been superseded, outdated, or in bad condition. The current system until recently has been to pull old editions of books as new ones came in, and to withdraw certain dated materials, and items with broken bindings. This has been successful overall, but additional volumes of new materials that will come with continued growth are going to make this an overwhelming problem. The solution is to build a schedule for evaluating materials into the selection process.

Public libraries turn over their collections at a much greater rate than research libraries, and specialized collections, that buy most of their books for their permanent value to the collection. They often retain old editions for their research potential, and rebind items that are coming apart. For a public library most of the copies of a best seller may be dead within six months. Even items of substantial content can date quickly, and books that appear new to most eyes are often replaced yearly.

Anyone informed enough to select a book is likely to have an idea of the length of time it is likely to be of value to most of our customers. Because of the knowledge our Selectors have about the books and the collection it would be wise to capitalize on this knowledge and have them, as part of the process, to assign a number that would correspond to its value in terms of years of value. Many of our books have a life expectancy of no more than five years. Each book could be assigned a value between 1 and 5, corresponding to the number of years the selector thinks the item is likely to have value to our collection, which would also be discussed and approved by the Selection Committee. A list of these books could be generated by the computer according to the life value assigned; the person making the decision would not be starting afresh in making the decision what to keep or discard, but would have an indication of what the original Selectors and Committee thought its lifespan might be. This should make the decision easier as there is already the beginning of an “information history” for that particular title.

Books thought to have permanent value to the library, could be assigned the status Permanent Value (PV). This would include our local history books, books by local authors, as well as various classics, and items, like dictionaries and such, that people expect us to have. These items would all be reviewed from time to time, but would not be an automatic part of the continual review process inherent in the year number system.


What is a Core Collection? Building the Bones

There are certain books in our literary tradition that should be part of every large public collection of books. These are books that are likely to be asked for “out of the blue”, as “Do you have a copy of Plato’s Republic?” The answer should always be “Yes.” For example, I was recently asked by a series of half a dozen honors students for the Republic and a dozen or so other classics, including Dante, Milton, and other books which are considered a traditional part of honors (and college prep) work. It was difficult to fill most of the requests, and most of the students had to be put on reserve lists for the few items in the system.

There are other books and materials in this category either by right of what they are, or who we are — that is, the repository of knowledge about Boone County and Kentucky for our area, that we ought to have. In addition, there are other books that will allow us to cover important fields about which we may be asked, that is, there should not be major gaps in important fields, e.g., we should have a fair selection of books about ancient Egypt, psychology, anthropology, etc., in fact in any area that we may be called on to provide authoritative answers.


The Question of Permanent Value

Permanent value is relative to a collection, and is a subjective judgment. There should be some guidelines concerning what would be a candidate for this part of the collection. Using the 1-5 scale this would be the relative scale of value:

1 - 2 Popular topical materials
3 - 4 Strong Content
5 - PV Core Collection

All local history materials would be automatically PV books. Other materials deemed of permanent value to our collection would also receive this category distinction. A five year book with strong content that circulated well might become a candidate for this category, as well as any other book that seems to defy the originally designated category or reach classic status.

A factor that can be put to use in this regard (whether intended or not) is built into the Dewey Decimal Classification system.

000-200 Religion, Philosophy, etc. More classics, high content
300-700 Sciences, Domestic Arts, etc. More recent and topical books, revised and updated editions
800-900 History, Literature More classics, high content

From the diagram it appears that the red, or upper half should have a higher concentration of permanent value materials just by the nature of their content. This includes classics of history, philosophy, and literature. Standard editions of great poets, writers, literary criticism, religious classics, editions and translations of the Bible and other sacred works. Works of high content that may not be PV books, would likely receive 5, as most historical subjects are not completely rewritten every five years, and may last much longer, even if newer works come out. There is a great deal of religious and self-help ephemera, which might receive relatively low year numbers, but even that tends to be asked for again eventually.

In the green, or lower hemisphere we find that the largest half of the collection consists of many areas that are highly topical, require new and often updated editions of standard works, and is very research oriented. Medicine would receive many ones and twos. Most of the sciences, which change rapidly, would receive ones through threes. The domestic arts are filled with many books that might be expected to have a life expectancy of two to four years. This is signified by the blue circle, which should be much larger in the green hemisphere than the red, which is why it is shown off-center. The social sciences contain many materials that might be discarded in a year or two, issues like smoking and violence change nuances often, but there are some classics. If this expectancy were built into the system it would save a great deal of time deciding when to review a section, what to pull, and speed up the process of deciding whether or not to keep items, and when to review items again. In short, with this system, we would not only have a kind of built in weeding guide, we would also know where to expect most of these materials to be.

It would not be too much to suggest that the Selectors would probably become the team that re-evaluates the books, when they are ordered pulled by the Acquisitions Librarian. They could either approve the librarian’s decisions, or make suggestions.


Generating Lists and the Selection Meeting

Lists of books to buy should be generated by the Selectors. They should actively seek guidance and suggestions from the public, other library workers, and by talking to booksellers, librarians at other institutions, the use of questionnaires, and perhaps other means not mentioned here. The titles can come from catalogues, reviews (including the journals to which they subscribe), and products like I-page. They should be aware of the collection as a whole (a weakness of the old system, in my opinion), and particularly of “holes” or gaps in our collection. Their primary business should be to actively engage in establishing the core collection and insuring that there is a uniform quality of current topical and popular books along with a solid core of sound factual and high content classics that provide balance to the collection. Because weeding can cause unfortunate gaps (if it is not done in conjunction with acquisition) it would seem reasonable for the Selectors to use the lists which are produced for withdrawals as an aid in making new selections.

The lists of titles chosen for consideration by the Selectors should be provided to the Selection Committee before the actual meeting. No objectivity is gained by springing items on them at the last moment. On the contrary, if members of the Committee have questions they can look up individual items and be intelligently prepared to ask questions about the value of that item for the collection. In fact great care should be made not just to purchase interesting books, but that the item add to the collection as a whole. For example, if an interesting new topical book is selected and approved for purchase, rather than ordering, say, four or five additional copies for all the branches, why not order two or perhaps three additional copies, and choose a complimentary book or two in the same subject area which will enhance our offerings. In addition, it is less likely that all the copies will go dead at the same time.

There should be a real exchange between the Selector and the Committee (one of whom will be a Selector), and the aim will be to get us the best possible collection to fulfill our mission. I recently mentioned to a lady I met at Kroger that I worked at the library. She said: “I don’t go there. They never have what I want.” Selectors should be talking to people like this. If they found things they wanted they would mention it to their friends (who often share similar tastes) and circulation would increase; it would also likely benefit the collection by including more diverse tastes.


Our Relation to Other Institutions

The use of the library by students in honors classes has been mentioned. I think such students could be better served by having the teachers submit book request forms for their classes. We cannot expect the teachers to initiate this. We need to realize that part of our mission is to support other institutions in the community. They often cannot provide all of the materials they need for their programs and depend on us to do so for them. This obviously includes schools, the single most significant institution in this regard is probably Ryle High School; but also included is home schooling, for which such support is often even more crucial; but the material needs for these two are complimentary in many ways. I think we should make a particular point to have our Selectors interview teachers of honors classes to find out what they need.

We also provide important support to local colleges, even those with large resources, since students often wish to avoid traveling too far. Particularly close are Gateway and Beckfield. I have had the same question from nursing students at Beckfield College probably a score or more of times: “Do you have anything on nursing theorists!” This must be a standard question asked in a certain class. The answer we have to give is: “No. That is much too specialized for our scope.” But is it? If we were proactive in this regard one of our Selectors would find out the source of this question, approach that professor, and find out the one or two books that would allow his or her students to answer that question satisfactorily. That would not be beyond our scope. We buy books all the time we are uncertain anyone will use. Here we would have a definite target audience for the volumes, we would support another institution that has a public function in our community. The students would be happy (and try us again the next time they have a question, instead of assuming we probably do not have what they want), and we would still be well within our scope. It would not be the same as purchasing hundreds, or even dozens, of technical nursing books. The scope would be quite limited and the service greatly appreciated.

We also serve to support other government and public agencies. We have public documents from the airport, garbage and sewer services, environmental issues, and county planning issues, perhaps issues of terrorism in the future. We need to determine what information the public needs to complement the reports of public agencies. We also serve as a source of materials for those who are studying for tests by private and public agencies: GED, ACT, SAT, and citizenship application tests. This are services that are important to the public, and cannot be simply measured by circulation statistics. The chief value is that they support education and citizenship by providing materials that people might not otherwise be able to afford in their efforts to better themselves. Such materials important in fulfilling our responsibility to other institutions.


A System of Qualitative Measurement

Probably the most significant factor we take into consideration in deciding to withdraw an item is the circulation statistics. They are very important in this regard, and I do not discount them. It is obvious in many cases, however, that the book should not be withdrawn even though the book has had virtually no use. In other words this criteria is often no use at all since we go against it. The problem lies in the Circle of Categories outlined above. It is unreasonable beyond a doubt to think that the entire collection will have the same level of use, but this does not mean that less use signifies less importance. In fact, the contrary seems to be more likely to be the case. We need a system of qualitative measurement rather than the sheer quantity of usage.

With the introduction of the number of years of projected value we have already introduced a principle by which we can pass to a qualitative measurement that is not wholly arbitrary. Since we do not expect the red hemisphere — philosophy, religion, and the like, to have as high circulation as the green hemisphere — sciences, domestic, sports, etc. — it seems reasonable to count uses of those materials at a different value. There are several ways this could be done to arrive at qualitative use. Books that fall in the category Permanent Value could receive a higher score than books we think will only be on the shelves a year or so. These books, used by students and researchers, such as genealogists, an important factor in our long-term plan, support the community in ways that other books, such as cookbooks (usually a personal or family consideration), or others may not do.

In our chart above the Permanent Value books (say up to 25% of the collection) is represented by the yellow core, are closely allied in value with the books we intend to keep at least five years. Let us give each use of these books a value of 4. The books in the blue circle (say 50% of the collection) we plan to keep two or three years. They get a value of 2. The topical and popular books we may only keep one or two years. Let us give them a value of 1.

1 to 2 years value 1
3 to 4 years value 2
5 or PV books value 4

This would be no more trouble than keeping our current circulation statistics. For one and two year books the value would simply be the circulation number. For the materials in the other categories we would simply increase the value for books by the value number, so that Plato’s Republic would receive a qualitative score of four, while the twenty-ninth edition of How to Purchase Insurance without Getting Beat (maybe that’s a real title), would receive a value of one per use, and be gone the next year. We still have the quantities measure for each book for any use we need it. The system would apply to in-house uses as well, so that uses of local history or other reference materials would be much greater in quality. This would greatly reduce the problem of justifying expensive materials that do not get a large number of uses. It would also account for books that get horrible circulation statistics, like dictionaries, that everyone expects us to have. Of course they often sneak them back on the shelves before we can scan them and get the statistic, but that won’t matter so much in the new system.

This qualitative system of valuation would be helpful in our quest to provide support for the activities of other institutions that are patronized by our customers, rather than merely relying on actual number counts, and use of such a system should be considered for this reason. While some PV books may go several years without much use qualitative use of materials in the various areas is more significant. This system of valuation will be valuable in showing how each area of the collection adds value to the whole, rather than focusing on the particular value of any one book.

Donated Books

Since this plan is intended to be comprehensive I will mention the place of donated books in the system. The vast majority of donated books go to the book sale. This is a good thing, but there might be better ways to use some of the items we do not add to the collection. I find that among the books, particularly paperbacks, that show up at the sale, there are classics and other volumes that are on the required reading lists that students are waiting for (sometimes in long queues), and yet we are selling them for ten cents at the book sale five or six months later. I think some system of getting these books into the hands of those who need them should be considered.

Many of the people in our area own at least a few books of local interest. These do not always appear to be of value on the surface. As an example, I once found a small paper bound volume that was a history of the Masonic lodge in Erlanger. This rather non-descript item would normally have been thrown away or sent (without much prospect of finding a purchaser) to the book sale. On inspection it turned out that a number of the members listed, with their affiliations, were from Florence, and the item was promptly added to the local history collection. Our original method of handling donated books accounted for the fact that though some people call attention to the value of the local history items they have donated others either expect us to know their value, or (perhaps discarding someone else’s no longer needed items), are not aware of their value. Since these items can only be spotted by someone knowledgeable in local history, lore and literature, we may lose items of local significance if this step is dropped. At any rate these books should be used to enhance our programs in any way possible before being sent to the book sale.






A Time Table for Implementation

Not everything can be done immediately. If this system is implemented, and it is a system, not merely a method of acquisition, it would be some time before we would see the full benefits. We have just completed a massive weeding project, and that is no longer pressing, nevertheless, we should plan to evaluate the entire collection within five years. This could be done first in the areas where we identified the largest number of books likely to be one or two year books and then expanded each year. Any book kept in the system would be assigned a year expectancy number, as would every new item, so that within five years the entire collection would be on the new system. Because of their importance we could assign a team to begin classifying PV books as soon as possible. There might be ways to speed up this time table, but it is always good to begin with a target.

This plan is general enough and includes enough flexibility that we could modify it as we learn to use it. We would surely make changes and introduce definitions such as “What is the criteria for a three year book?” Such rules of thumb are necessary and can only be devised by experience.


James Duvall, M.A.
Big Bone University
Nec ossa solum, sed etiam sanguinem.

Sample Library Questionnaire

What types of books do you mostly read?
Do you usually find the materials you want in our library?
Do you use our computers regularly?
Are you familiar with our website?
Do you attend programs?
Do you think we should improve our selection of books, music, music, DVDs? How?
What is the last book you read?
Would you be willing to suggest a list of five to ten important books in your favorite subject area?
Do you prefer digital books, audio books, etc.
Would you like to talk to one of our book selectors about our collection and your areas of interest?
Do you think we should have more popular books or books of more enduring value in your subject area?
What can we do to make your visits to the library more profitable and enjoyable?
What are we doing right?
Anything else?

A similar but different questionnaire should be made for teachers.