Posted on: Friday, June 21, 2002

School board gives state librarian top rating

By Jennifer Hiller
Advertiser Education Writer

For overseeing a library system that has grown even as its budget has shrunk, State Librarian Virginia Lowell received the highest possible rating from the Board of Education last night in her annual job evaluation.

The performance evaluation, though, came amid growing conflict over the Kapolei Public Library and Lowell's controversial stance on whether to open the new building.

The fate of Kapolei Library, an empty, 30,000-square-foot building, is at an impasse between those who believe the facility should remain closed until the state coughs up the money for 24 staff members and a 60,000 book collection, and those who say the library could be useful to the community if it housed donated books.

While community groups have offered to hold book drives and volunteer time to get the new library opened, Lowell has maintained that the new library should have a collection of new books similar to others in the system.

Lowell has said she won't consider gift and donated books except those that might apply to a core collection that has been selected and cataloged by professional librarians.

Rep. Mark Moses, R-42nd (Kapolei, 'Ewa Village, Village Park), said he has repeatedly asked what books the library would like to have so local business can donate new ones, but has gotten no response. Thousands of books residents had donated for the library were eventually given to a church because the library refused them, he said

Moses said Lowell should use the available state money and more than $20,000 in community donations to open the library on a limited basis.

"There is money. There has been money," Moses said. "Why can't we open now with what we have?"

Resident Herman Young told board members that even old, donated books have good ideas in them.

Board members seemed split on the issue. Shannon Ajifu suggested selling the donated books and using the money to donate to the Kapolei Library.

But Winston Sakurai, chairman of the board's library committee, said the library will be happy to accept donated books when it has the staff to be able to catalog and sort them. "We will accept them," he said. "Just now is not the time."

Still, board member Karen Knudsen noted that the library seems to be losing the public relations battle over the Kapolei issue. And board member Meyer Ueoka wondered if the library could work more closely with community groups desperate to help. "We need the support of the community when there's pressure at the Legislature," he said.

But even if the library accepted donations, Lowell said the system does not have the money to operate a new library now.

Lowell had asked for $1.7 million to pay for staff, books, furniture and other equipment for the new library.

The Legislature approved $267,000 — enough to pay for five staff members but no books. Then Gov. Ben Cayetano and Sen. Brian Kanno, D-20th ('Ewa Beach, Makakilo, Kapolei), worked to release an additional $212,000 for the purchase of books and materials.

"I've been here four years now," she said earlier this month. "And from that very first legislative session I have said, 'Don't build buildings without providing operating money to sustain them.' And that's what will happen again next session when we go back and say, 'We will not open the Kapolei Library — even in December of 2003 — until you guarantee that operating money will be added into our budget.'"

Librarians for now plan to at least use the new library as a training site for themselves and a meeting place for the community. They want to hold children's story hours there and other events so the building gets some type of use.

This year, the state library's budget was trimmed by $424,000, or 2 percent.

The library system will cope with the cuts by not hiring new people when there are turnovers, lowering the number of student helper hours and reducing collection purchases, even as the cost of library materials rises by 11 percent each year.

Lowell earns $108,000 a year and oversees 51 public libraries, a $25 million operating budget and 525 full-time employees. Lowell has previously received positive evaluations from the board.