Susan Wise Bauer's Blog, page 20

The New Year commences

What with wrestling with the Renaissance world, struggling to complete Peace Hill Press's upcoming middle-grade writing and grammar curriculum, and fuming over my local library's unreasonable new policies, I haven't posted too many updates recently.

Updates on the Renaissance world and the writing and grammar program shortly. For today, the next volley in the library battle. (I call it a volley. So far as I can tell, my shots are evaporating silently into the ether.)

January 8, 2011

To:

Susan S. Geary

Jean Van Tol

Sarah Houghland

Lynda Byrd-Poller

Suzanne R. Mellen

Mary H. Norment

Vickie Herrick

Bill Porter

J. H. Willis

Now that the holidays are over, I would like to renew my plea for an explanation over the board's refusal to consider a fee-based system for out of county residents.

Those of us who have used and supported the WRL system for decades are aware that funding is tight. But we would like to continue our support of this library system.

Could you please explain why a fee-based card is not being made available?

I can only think of two reasons. First: that the per-card fee seems unreasonably high and so was not even presented to out-of-city residents as an option. If that is the case, please tell me: what would the projected per-card fee be? If the decision was made on this basis, numbers must be available.

Second: that one of the current participants in the library system has threatened to pull funding if cards continue to be offered to residents of the nearby counties. As you must be aware, rumor has it that York County has made exactly this threat. If this is indeed the case, this should be public record–not least for the residents of York County. If not, York County should be exonerated.

Is there a third reason why fee-based cards are not under consideration?

I have received no answers to my previous emails. Emails sometimes go astray, so if a response is not made, I will be happy to send this request by registered mail or raise it at the January 26 meeting of the Board of Trustees.

Please be assured that I share with other concerned residents of Charles City, Surry, and New Kent a sincere desire to help the WRL Library System in its current crisis.

I would also like to continue to express my concern over the effect this will have on the Williamsburg economy. Today, I registered for a library card at the Richmond Public Library. This is much further away from my home than the WRL system, and in no way is my local library. However, until the current WRL policy is changed, I will be taking my family to the RPL instead. This means that the regular day we have always spent in Williamsburg–shopping, eating, visiting Colonial Williamsburg and making purchases there, buying gasoline from local stations–will be spent in Richmond. My consumer dollars and sales tax will support Richmond's economy instead.

I have always taken pride in supporting Williamsburg's off-season economy, and I regret very much that I am now forced to remove this support. I hope that it will soon become possible, once again, to take our regular library day in Williamsburg–as we have been doing for the last thirty years.

I would be happy to receive an answer which is not a form letter.

Sincerely,

Susan Wise Bauer

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2011-01-02

Sitting on a sled at the top of a very steep hill. Sure I can stop before I hit the Chickahominy at the bottom… #
Survived sled plunge & subsequent cold HOURS waiting for children to finish. Now eating flatbreads, drinking merlot, wearing fuzzy slippers. #
Second-day sledding: kids on sleds, sleds tied to RTV, RTV skidding across fields. #
Must. Think. Faster. #
My three sons are producing a rousing chorus of "I Feel Pretty" from downstairs. I am alarmed. #
It may take me the rest of the year to recover from last night's chocolate and cheese extravaganza. #
Celebrating the New Year by…working. #

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The afterword

Well, so that is that.

Now we must dismantle the tree,

Putting the decorations back into their cardboard boxes -

Some have got broken – and carrying them up to the attic.

The holly and the mistletoe must be taken down and burnt,

And the children got ready for school. There are enough

Left-overs to do, warmed-up, for the rest of the week -

Not that we have much appetite, having drunk such a lot,

Stayed up so late, attempted – quite unsuccessfully -

To love all of our relatives, and in general

Grossly overestimated our powers. Once again

As in previous years we have seen the actual Vision and failed

To do more than entertain it as an agreeable

Possibility, once again we have sent Him away,

Begging though to remain His disobedient servant,

The promising child who cannot keep His word for long.

The Christmas Feast is already a fading memory,

And already the mind begins to be vaguely aware

Of an unpleasant whiff of apprehension at the thought

Of Lent and Good Friday which cannot, after all, now

Be very far off. But, for the time being, here we all are,

Back in the moderate Aristotelian city

Of darning and the Eight-Fifteen, where Euclid's geometry

And Newton's mechanics would account for our experience,

And the kitchen table exists because I scrub it.

It seems to have shrunk during the holidays. The streets

Are much narrower than we remembered; we had forgotten

The office was as depressing as this. To those who have seen

The Child, however dimly, however incredulously,

The Time Being is, in a sense, the most trying time of all.

For the innocent children who whispered so excitedly

Outside the locked door where they knew the presents to be

Grew up when it opened. Now, recollecting that moment

We can repress the joy, but the guilt remains conscious;

Remembering the stable where for once in our lives

Everything became a You and nothing was an It.

And craving the sensation but ignoring the cause,

We look round for something, no matter what, to inhibit

Our self-reflection, and the obvious thing for that purpose

Would be some great suffering. So, once we have met the Son,

We are tempted ever after to pray to the Father;

"Lead us into temptation and evil for our sake."

They will come, all right, don't worry; probably in a form

That we do not expect, and certainly with a force

More dreadful than we can imagine. In the meantime

There are bills to be paid, machines to keep in repair,

Irregular verbs to learn, the Time Being to redeem

From insignificance. The happy morning is over,

The night of agony still to come; the time is noon:

When the Spirit must practice his scales of rejoicing

Without even a hostile audience, and the Soul endure

A silence that is neither for nor against her faith

That God's Will will be done,

That, in spite of her prayers,

God will cheat no one, not even the world of its triumph.

W. H. Auden

Christmas Oratorio

Merry Christmas!

I'm heading offline for Christmas. Blog posts resume next week.

Salvation to all that will is nigh;

That All, which always is all everywhere,

Which cannot sin, and yet all sins must bear,

Which cannot die, yet cannot choose but die,

Lo, faithful virgin, yields Himself to lie

In prison, in thy womb; and though He there

Can take no sin, nor thou give, yet He will wear,

Taken from thence, flesh, which death's force may try.

Ere by the spheres time was created, thou

Wast in His mind, who is thy Son and Brother;

Whom thou conceivst, conceived; yea thou art now

Thy Maker's maker, and thy Father's mother;

Thou hast light in dark, and shutst in little room,

Immensity cloistered in thy dear womb.

–John Donne

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-12-19

I want to go running in the cold cold rain. I want to go running in the cold cold rain. I WANT to go running in the cold cold rain… #
And now it's snowing and sleeting simultaneously. Tomorrow looks like a GREAT day for a run. #
Nothing is more infuriating: send a carefully thought out opinion letter, get back a perfunctory form letter. Why both to invite opinion? #
I just ran eight miles and my eyelashes froze. #
DS19 home from UVA, I wrote two really good pages today (I think), expecting snow tomorrow, I have a fresh bag of Cape Cod chips. All good. #
Am I the only person who wants to hear what Roger Waters REALLY thinks about Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros? #
Getting ready for an exciting morning of writing about the Koshots and Dzungars. #
Ah, snow, there you are! #
It's sooo grey today. #
New family rule: No breaking the furniture after 9 PM. (DS19 is home for Christmas = three teenaged boys over 6 feet in one house.) #

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They really think we won't KNOW it's a form letter…

The complete stonewalling from everyone connected with the Williamsburg Regional Library's decision to deprive us of the library privileges we've had for the last forty years continues.

After sending a heartfelt plea to the library director, Mr. Moorman, and getting back a canned dismissal, I sent a second email to the entire board of trustees.

Here's what I got back this morning:

Dear Ms. Bauer–

I assure you that this difficult but necessary decision was not

made lightly–and made with a great deal of regret.

Susan Geary, Chair

WRL Board of Trustees

News flash to all bureaucrats:

1. We're not fooled. A form letter practically comes with a flashing yellow light on it and a siren screaming WE DID NOT READ YOUR OPINION AND HOPE THAT YOU WILL GO AWAY.

2. People who complain about an issue know each other. They discuss the issues. They compare responses. I had barely opened Ms. Geary's email before three friends forwarded me the exact same response. More followed during the day.

I emailed Ms. Geary and the rest of the board of trustees back:

I would like the entire board of trustees to know exactly how unsatisfactory this canned response from Ms. Geary is. A number of friends have forwarded me the exact same response to their equally heartfelt pleas. None of us understand why it is so impossible for the board to explain exactly WHY a fee-based system for out-of-county residents is impossible. This should be public knowledge.

Let me ask yet again:

Why is it impossible for out-of-county residents to receive privileges in return for a fee? Almost every library system in Virginia offers this option. When we ask why this is not possible here, all we get it, "The circumstances are different."

We are taxpayers. We pay sales tax in York County, James City, and Williamsburg. A LOT of sales tax. The library receives state funds; that too is our money. Our money is being used, yet a strange secrecy persists.

Please provide an explanation as to why a fee-based system is impossible for WRL.

We know that funding is low. WE ARE ANXIOUS TO HELP. We would like to be part of the solution. Yet we are being shut out, and the stonewalling on the part of every library official makes it seem as though something under-the-table is going on. We will not drop this until we find out what it is.

I would be happy to receive an answer which is not a form letter.

Sincerely,

Susan Wise Bauer

A number of you have offered extremely helpful and practical suggestions in your comments; thank you! We'll be following up on them. In the meantime, I continue to believe that the WRL board owes the public an explanation. A full explanation. A non-form explanation. If we don't know what the problem is, we can't act as allies; our only choice to to act as enemies.

Weirdly, the form letter sent out by library director Mr. Moorman seems to be mutating. Friends who received form letters from him yesterday and today got this version:

As mentioned in my memo to non-residents of the City of Williamsburg, James City County and York County which is available at library public service desks;" In an economic and political climate where the library has received budget reductions and looks at a future filled with uncertainty, it became evident to the Board of Trustees that to sustain financial support the library must restrict its circulation privileges to users who live in localities that directly fund the Williamsburg Regional Library." In the above statement I would underline

political and sustain financial support.

For these reasons the policy was adopted and any options such as providing for non-resident cards for a fee are not under consideration.

Um…

Why does underlining change anything? Mr. Moorman, are you sending us a secret coded message that you're not allowed to speak? Are you only able to send cryptic pleas for understanding? How can we help you get your message through??

A question, and a request

The most recent round of non-informative responses from library folk (see below): The Williamsburg Regional Library won't offer cards in return for a fee "in order to maintain funding from current governmental agencies."

Does anyone have ANY idea what this means?

Also, a number of you (including locals) have expressed outrage. Express it to the Board of Trustees. The following information is public, located here on the WRL website.

Trustees

Officers

Susan S. Geary, Chair

City of Williamsburg, 06/30/13

757-229-8835

susgeary@cox.net

Jean Van Tol, Vice-Chair

James City County, 07/31/14

757-220-3248

jeanvantol@cox.net

Sarah Houghland, Secretary

City of Williamsburg, 06/30/11

757-229-9591

shoughland@cwf.org

Members

Lynda Byrd-Poller

James City County, 06/30/12

757-253-5785

lbyrdpol@odu.edu

Suzanne R. Mellen

James City County, 06/30/11

757-253-6638

suem@james-city.va.us

Mary H. Norment

James City County, 07/31/14

757-220-1619

Mary7hn@aol.com

Members

Vickie Herrick

City of Williamsburg, 06/30/14

757-220-6190

vherrick@williamsburgva.gov

Bill Porter

James City County, 06/30/13

757-564-7875

billport@verizon.net

J. H. Willis, Jr.

City of Williamsburg, 06/30/12

757-229-6142

jhwill@wm.edu

Williamsburg Regional Library: Hear this

UPDATE: If you're revisiting, scroll down to the bottom of the post for the complete non-response.

Those of you who aren't local will have to forgive me as I use this blog to protest. But the situation here is probably being reproduced elsewhere in the country, thanks to budget cuts–and if anyone out there has any advice for me, I'd be most happy to hear it.

Today, I received this email from the library I have been using for my entire life. (Tiny bit of background: Charles City County, my home, has never had a library; just a bookmobile. The Williamsburg Regional Library, within the city limits, is our only local library.)

http://wrl.org/info/newpolicy.pdf

New WRL Library Card Policy

The Williamsburg Regional Library Board of Trustees recently approved a new library card policy that may affect your borrowing privileges.

Beginning February 1, 2011 only residents of the City of Williamsburg, James City County and York County will be issued WRL library cards.

As of that date the library will stop honoring all cards previously issued to those not residing in the above locations.

Non-residents of the City of Williamsburg, James City County and York County may continue to:

Use the Williamsburg Regional Library's materials in-house

Ask library staff members for help

Attend events in both library buildings

Use public computers.

Questions? Contact library director John Moorman at: 757-259-7777 or jmoorman@wrl.org

Here is my response. Whether it will do any good, I have no idea.

Mr. Moorman,

I am absolutely appalled–and angry–to learn of the library's new policy.

I have lived in Charles City County for most of my life. I teach literature and writing at William and Mary and have four children. As you may know, we have no permanent library in Charles City, and my children had read their way through the entire "collection" here by the time they were in middle school.

I have been using the Williamsburg Public Library myself since 1973, and have used it for my children for the last nineteen years. Those of us who live in Charles City, particularly on the eastern end (over an hour away from the Richmond library) have nowhere else to go. We have always considered WRL our public library, and have supported it in every possible manner. I am on a first-name basis with the children's librarians, who have watched my children grow from preschool through university age, and who have always welcomed us warmly into the stacks. I, my husband, my children, and my parents all hold library cards and make regular use of them.

It was bad enough when the Board of Trustees decided to limit the reference and checkout services to non-county residents, but we coped with this change (unhappily, I might add). But now I learn that my family's library cards–all eight of them–will become completely invalid on February 1.

To cut off library services to Charles City residents is shortsighted and ungrateful. It takes no notice of the contribution that those of us who don't happen to live within the city limits make to the intellectual and educational life of Williamsburg.

It doesn't even make financial sense. I work in Williamsburg. I shop in Williamsburg, which means I pay local taxes. I pay library fines, I have donated to the library, I have given books to the library. I am a published author whose books are STOCKED in the library. Yet as of February, I will be deprived of any use of the institution I have supported for most of my life.

Apparently there is no way for me to have any voice in this matter. I was not allowed to comment; my input was not solicited. I don't know how to appeal, or what steps to take next. All I know is that a huge part of our lives–the library that we have been visiting weekly for two decades, the library that I have been using for forty years–is being taken away from us.

The last time I was in the library–last week–I checked out three books for my ten-year-old daughter that I had read myself at the age of ten. Not just the titles, but the SAME BOOKS from the same library. I passed them on to her with delight. It never occurred to me that this tradition would come to an abrupt end.

I would appreciate an answer from you.

Thank you for your time,

Susan Wise Bauer

susanwisebauer.com

Member of the faculty, English Department, College of William and Mary

Owner and publisher, Peace Hill Press (http://www.peacehillpress.com)

Author of The Well-Trained Mind, The Well-Educated Mind, The History of the Ancient World, and The History of the Medieval World, all published by W. W. Norton and purchased by the Williamsburg Regional Library.

ADDENDUM: So after sending my letter, I got this back.

Susan Wise Bauer:

I thank you for your e-mail expressing your concern about the recent decision of the Board of Trustees of the Williamsburg Regional Library to limit library card holding privileges to residents, business or property owners in a city or county that funds the Williamsburg Regional Library effective February 1, 2011. I fully understand your concern.

As indicated in my memo to non-residents of the City of Williamsburg, James City County and York County the reason for this action by the Board of Trustees was the realization that;"to sustain financial support the library must restrict its circulation privileges to users who live in localities that directly fund the Williamsburg Regional Library."

Although as a resident of Charles City County after February 1, 2011 you and your family will not be able to check out materials from Williamsburg Regional Library locations you may still use library materials in-house, ask library staff members for help, attend events in both library buildings and use public computers.

Again, I thank you for your e-mail. As a resident of Charles City County you and your family have full access to the programs and services of the Heritage Public Library with permanent locations in both Charles City County and New Kent County. I encourage you to make use of these facilities and work with library staff to provide the services and programs you desire.

Sincerely yours,

John A. Moorman

Director

To which I answered:

Actually I was hoping for something more than a form response.

SWB

Really, if you're going to send a form letter, you can do a little better than just repeating the press release.

Weirdly, a friend of mine who also wrote a heartfelt protest got back the same form letter, EXCEPT that hers (and not mine) included the following paragraph:

As public library service is a function of government and provided for by government funds it is not available for purchase by individuals . It is paid for by the governments providing this service. Therefore memberships will not be available for non-residents.

Which is just stupid.

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-12-12

Christmas Tree Day! #
Feeling particularly untweety this week. #
Have been writing all day. Tremendous urge to go eat mac and cheese. Must resist. Alcohol, heck; writers are slaves to the carbs. #
Seventeen. Degrees. #
Happy birthday, Mom! #
DS14 appears to be reading history. However, his eyes aren't actually moving. Suspect he has escaped to secret history-free internal realm. #
Working on middle-grade writing curriculum at Aromas just off Merchant's Square. Nice tables, nice lights, chatty ambience, snarky service. #
A couple of hours to relax alone means: disaster movie! What should it be? I Am Legend, 2012, Outbreak? Asteroids, comets, tidal waves, ice? #

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A whole new thing for writers to fret about

Some time ago I set up an Amazon Author Central account, after multiple emails from the Amazon Marketing Machine suggested that having an Amazon Author page would rocket my sales into the stratosphere. (At least that was implied.)

I wouldn't say that the Author page has necessarily changed my life, but it's a nice little feature. This week, though, it became something more. This week, Amazon informed me that through my Author Central account, I could now access BookScan numbers for all my books.

BookScan tracks, by its own account, about 75% of book sales through bookstores; it doesn't track direct from publisher sales, or sales made at Target, Sam's Club, and a couple of other outlets. Most authors don't have access to BookScan. I know how many of my books published by Peace Hill Press sell each week, because I look over the inventory. But I never have any idea how many copies of the Norton books are selling (or not, as the case may be) until I get my royalty statement a year after the fact.

Now, all I have to do is log into my Author Central account and click on the Sales Info tab. Instantly I can see how many copies total of all of my books were sold in the previous week–AND get a map telling me where those sales happened!

(Here's a sample map from the "About This" part of the site:)

If I run my mouse over the map, it tells me exactly how many copies of my books were sold in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, or in Austin, or Salt Lake City, or Richmond, or Seattle the previous week. And I can get other maps for individual titles (of mine–I can't see other people's figures) and track their sales separately.

This is a good thing. I mean, information is useful, and publishers aren't generally great at providing it. On the other hand…

…hey! why is my sale total down from last week? ?

…why does Wichita apparently SHUN the History of the Medieval World, alone among my titles?

…why doesn't anyone in North Dakota buy my books? What's wrong with me, North Dakotans?

Ahem. Apparently my new access to BookScan is going to require me to develop an entire new set of mental disciplines.