A Lofty Vision For Reviving City Libraries

An ambitious proposed makeover of the D.C. public library system would take five to 10 years and cost nearly half a billion dollars, up to $100 million of which city officials hope to raise from private donors and foundations, library board President John W. Hill said.

In an interview Monday, Hill called the system "an embarrassment" and elaborated on the draft plan released last week by a task force appointed by Mayor Anthony A. Williams. The task force spent the past year traveling to library systems across the country and comparing them with the District's library headquarters and 26 neighborhood branches.

On Saturday, the task force will host the third of 10 scheduled community meetings to discuss what services the libraries should offer. Williams (D), who has pledged to start fixing the city's aging, neglected libraries before leaving office at the end of the year, is scheduled to attend.

"Washington, D.C., should be the shining star of our nation. It's been an embarrassment in the library community," Hill said. "The thought that something could be done to turn it around . . . it's just amazing."

Saturday's session will start at 1:30 p.m. at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, 901 G St. NW, the city's central library facility. Seven more sessions will be held in the coming weeks. The second meeting was scheduled for last night, after the deadline for the District Extra.

The task force issued a draft report this month that called for building a new headquarters and replacing or completely renovating the 26 branch libraries, at an estimated cost of $450 million, excluding land.

Hill said the makeover would take at least five and possibly up to eight years and would have to be accompanied by significant improvements in book and electronic offerings, staffing and programming. For the first time, the city would seek substantial library funding from foundations and donors. Hill said that such a capital campaign probably would attempt to raise $60 million to $100 million, in line with what other cities have done.

The report sets a lofty vision: "First-rate libraries provide story times for toddlers, a safe haven for children, newspapers in foreign languages, book discussions and literacy classes for adults, ample copies of best sellers and quiet places to dream," it says.

District libraries suffered terribly during the fiscal crises of the 1990s. Staffing and hours were slashed, money to replace worn-out books dried up, repairs went undone. In recent years, staffing and hours have gradually been restored, and the number of Internet-accessible computers available for patrons has more than tripled, to 511.

But the library task force said that another 400 such computers are needed to bring the District in line with other comparable cities and that more than half of the books in the system should be replaced.

Critics wonder whether the District could launch such an ambitious makeover. After all, they point out, the city closed four branch libraries for renovations just as the task force was being formed, then scrapped the renovation plans last fall, saying they did not reflect what the system could become.

"We're entirely skeptical of the realism of this plan," said Leonard Minsky of the D.C. Library Renaissance Project, a watchdog group. "Nobody is talking about the needs of the people and how fast they need to be met."

But some longtime advocates for change say they believe the time may have come.

For years, Miles Steele III, a Hillcrest resident, called for improvements to the Francis Gregory library, near his home. No one listened, he said.

Then Steele was appointed to the task force, which included several citizen representatives, along with government officials, well-known librarians and academics who had launched improvements elsewhere.

The D.C. Council passed legislation requiring the library system to fashion a specific improvement plan within six months of the task force's final report. A search for a new library director -- an interim director has been in place since late 2003 -- is underway.

"It seems that the stars have aligned, and finally we have interest in the libraries," Steele said. "This has always been something that has been put on the back burner. "