Library Stories from the Show-Me State: Missouri

The People vs. the BIG people: How Money Changes People's Minds in Public Libraries

http://www.pitch.com/2008-11-13/news/life-of-kemper/

Above is a link to an article from a local news rag in Kansas City called the Pitch Weekly. The pitch is just about the only newspaper with the guts to write about the story of how Crosby Kemper III, former CEO of UMB bank became the director of  the Kansas City Public Library system without any previous library experience or training. One of our classmates brought up the idea of the NYPL as corporate entity and I thought this may be a good article to read and contemplate while thinking about the complexities of that kind of situation.

The questions are: Does the very active leader of a large public library system need to know the jargon and complex history behind American libraries or just how to raise money and bring more people to the library? The second question has to do with the intended audience: does bringing people in to the library who might not normally visit mean anything significantly good if those people aren't actually utilizing the library services?
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6261442.html

Crosby Kemper III basically lobbied to get a law changed in Missouri that stated that any director of a Kansas City library system hold a master's degree in library science. I personally think that this law was a good thing to have; it no longer exists in Missouri. Kemper asked Jane Cunningham, a St. Louis republican to sponser the bill, which is tacky since St. Louis and Kansas City are very different cities. Mr. Kemper used his charm and his name to get this thing passed so that he could take over. This being said, he has done many wonderful things for the library; He brings attention to it, donations are up, but we have to think about what the purpose of this library is. Is the central branch in downtown K.C. serving the people with money who want to come and party or is it serving the people who frequent the library most from the area? I have to admit that I probably went to the central branch more often after Kemper took over five years ago but I don't really go to the special events. I think these events  are nice and I like what he is doing in the way of adding to the conversations that are being built with the scholarly communities in the area. I just think that it is odd to sit and sip an expensive cappucino in the new coffee shop within the central library and then walk out and see that a majority of the patrons sitting in the seats throughout the library are homeless with nowhere else to spend their days. I stopped frequenting the cafe; it just seemed to strange.

KANSAS CITY BOOK ROBOT: Academic Libraries

Both the Kansas City Star and the Columbia Missourian, here at http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2010/06/05/space-starved-umkc-library-adds-retrieval-robots/

featured write-ups about the new innovative book retreival system which will help to save space at the University of Missouri, Kansas City's Miller-Nichols Library. This system was implemented in the summer of 2010 and books are still being added to the "robot."

My question is if people who have used this system for a while might think that maybe, browsing library shelves was a great option for some students. I know that in my undergraduate studies, when I went to my library shelves to pick up a book that I had found in the catalog, I usually found more books sitting next to my intended read on these shelves; this was indespensible in building my bibliography for projects and papers. Researching on the computer alone is just not my style. I know that because of this new stacks management system, shelving won't be as much of an issue and since at libraries like this one, shelving is sometimes done by work-study students who couldn't care less about the order of the books or even care to ask questions about what they don't know about shelving procedures. I have, more than once, had to suppress my inner panick as I walk to the reference desk and ask for a shelf-check on a book that was supposed to be there only to find out that the book had been mishelved. So, part of the problem with shelving may be fixed temporarily but what happens when this robot breaks (because you know it will)? Are they going to have to fly in a specialist to fix the contraption or send a young unsuspecting library intern from MU up the ladder to fetch it? This, to me seems like a temporary fix that might bring about more problems in a system that still relies heavily on the physical book.

Here is a link to the Kansas City Star article which I can't seem to get any other way, except by paying for it which I refuse to do.
http://infoweb.newsbank.com.ezproxy.library.wisc.edu/iw-search/we/InfoWeb?p_product=AWNB&p_theme=aggregated5&p_action=doc&p_docid=13028810E8A169B8&p_docnum=120&p_queryname=1


Springfield, Missouri Builds a Community Library for the Visually Impaired-Special Library

I thought this was wonderful to read. I feel a bit insensative now because I hadn't thought of a special and public library like this. It's nice to know that if an institution in a small town wants to help a segment of the community, it is possible to do so. My question is how many libraries for the blind are there in the United States? I am sure that there are not many and I am willing to be that they are mostly located in smaller communities with private funding. I am glad to know that the Wolfner library has tried to provide materials to visually impaired in Missouri for years.
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=l8QfAAAAIBAJ&sjid=h9gEAAAAIBAJ&pg=4341,958687&dq=wolfner+library+for+the+blind+missouri&hl=en