Skip to main content

Chester County Press

Bayard Taylor Memorial Library will not have a future unless it listens to the public

11/20/2013 03:48PM ● By Acl

Letter to the Editor:

The article published on the Bayard Taylor Memorial Library's future plans in your paper on October 13 was filled with the library's propaganda. Apparently there was no attempt to fact check the article. This is a disservice to your readers. The library director's guest column published in your November 6 edition was even worse. I can agree that a consortium was formed in the early 2000s, but with little else. I was a member of this consortium, and it met monthly for about a year. It should be noted that two municipalities seldom attended consortium meetings. During this year the members developed a rough fair share formula. The library viewed this formula as the completion of the consortium's objective. It was not.

The library members started to come to meetings about every three months. No useful progress was made due to the Library Board's refusal to maintain the originally agreed upon monthly meetings, and their failure to provide requested data to complete the formula. The consortium never recommended to municipal supervisors or the borough council that the formula be adopted.

Some of the items left to be resolved were how to adjust the rough formula to account for the five of eight municipalities served by more than one library, how the library board members would be selected and approved, how the formula would be updated when needed, and how would it be determined that a formula update was needed.

The library will not have a future unless it listens to what the public wants in a new library. And how the public would be willing to financially support the construction and operation of a new facility. Essentially the library has made no plans for its future based upon public input since 1995 when the library at that time announced the need for new facilities.

 

Bruce B. Yelton

Pocopson Township