Director's Blog

Thoughts from County Native and Arlington Public Library Director, Diane Kresh
Dear friends,
As we adjust to the new economic realities that have prompted budget reductions across County government, Arlington Public Library remains committed to providing the best services and collections possible for our customers.
Despite belt tightening and lifestyle changes, those of us fortunate enough to serve the residents of the County will continue the effort to preserve the things that make Arlington a special place to live and work. This is reflected in the budget choices we have made and in the services we continue to provide. 
In brief, Arlington Public Library’s budget recommendations for Fiscal Year (FY) 2010 are: 

• Glencarlyn, Cherrydale and Aurora Hills branches open 3 days per week
• Decreasing the materials budget by $125,000, meaning fewer purchases of books, magazines, newspapers, electronic databases, DVDs and music
• Significantly decreased use of non-permanent staff at all levels
• Increased vacancies within the permanent staff due to frozen positions
• Closing the current Westover branch facility effective July 1, to prepare for the opening of the new Westover facility in fall 2009
• Suggested increases in library fines and fees for printing, lost library cards, overdue materials and interlibrary loan mailings

None of these decisions were easy and at this stage, the FY 2010 budget is a proposal.

• March 4, Cherrydale
• March 10, Glencarlyn
• March 11, Aurora Hills (new time–8:30 p.m in senior center adjacent to library)
• March 17, Westover
• March 18, Central (Auditorium)
• March 31, Shirlington
• April 1, Columbia Pike

Thoughts from County Native and Arlington Public Library Director, Diane Kresh

• Please read the proposed Department of Libraries budget for FY 2010.
• A news release was issued Feb. 21 on the County Manager’s proposed FY 2010 for Arlington County, Virginia.
• More information on the Arlington County, Virginia proposed FY 2010 budget is available here.

Thoughts from County Native and Arlington Public Library Director, Diane Kresh

Visit Flickr for more of my take on the 56th Presidential Inauguration celebrations.

Thoughts from County Native and Arlington Public Library Director, Diane Kresh

Thoughts from County Native and Arlington Public Library Director, Diane Kresh

Yesterday was the King’s birthday. He would have been 74, which once seemed old. Maggie remembered seeing him (and paying no attention) on the Potomac River’s Wilson Line, performing country-western tunes–before he got famous, that is. Gemma never heard of him.  But then again, she’s 12 and only last year arrived in the States from India. She told me her favorite rock and roll singer is Hannah Montana.

When I was around Gemma’s age, I asked the adult services librarian at Westover to recommend something for me to read.  Then, as now, my tastes were eclectic and sensing that, she thrust into my hands a copy of Richard Powell’s “Pioneer, Go Home!,” a satirical novel (think “Once Upon a Time on the Banks” or “The Funeral Makers” by Cathie Pelletier),  first published in 1959. In brief, the novel is the story of the Kwimpers (think the Clampetts and the Sycamores of “You Can’t Take it With You”), who set out in their car from Cranberry, N.J. and end up settling in Columbiana, a fictional place that resembles the state of Florida, because their car runs out of gas on the highway.

Mayhem ensues. While waiting for assistance, Old Man Kwimper, his none-too-bright adult son, Toby, two twin boy orphans and a baby sitter (think Al Capp’s Daisy Mae) invoke squatters’ rights, build some shacks to live in  and proceed to annoy everyone: the locals, social workers, the government, even the Mob.  A classic story as old as storytelling–the iconoclastic rascal who outwits authority, stands up for the little guy and triumphs. 

Within a couple of years, I was watching “Saturday Night at the Movies” on television and as the plot of “Follow that Dream” unfolded, it all seemed very familiar–the freeloading patriarch, the doltish son, the nubile baby sitter. The Kwimpers! Now transferred to the silver screen, cinematizing a tale of luck-over-law in the best tradition of Preston Sturges and Frank Capra. And who was cast as the slow-of-wit-but-pure-of-heart Toby Kwimper? None other than Elvis Presley in one of his better film roles.  And in a twist on life imitates art, Presley’s own personal biography, from shotgun shack to Graceland, from the Wilson Line to a garage full of Cadillacs, is somewhat Kwimper-like in its demonstration of triumph over what had to be modest expectations, a rags to riches story worthy of Horatio Alger and Richard Powell. A classic story as old as storytelling and still as affecting and compelling.

Happy Birthday, Elvis.      
Get all your Elvis info links here in another fine Arlington Public Library “Spotlight.”

Thoughts from County Native and Arlington Public Library Director, Diane Kresh

Several weeks ago I had the pleasure of attending the weekly lunch of the Kiwanis Club of Arlington, which was honoring a staff member of Arlington Public Library for her community service. Mariela Aguilar’s selection by Kiwanis was, remarkably, the second time her life has intersected with the organization. As a young woman she came to the United States from Costa Rica to attend college in Florida. While she had lined up a campus job to offset school expenses, her slim finances did not allow for housing. The local Kiwanis club came through for Mariela with a small (but oh so significant) scholarship. She has never forgotten their generosity.

Kiwanis. Rotary. Lions. Optimists. Club names and symbols on signposts that greeted highway travelers at the limits of American’s cities and towns or blazed across Little League hats and jerseys on the Arlington ball fields of my brother Michael’s youth. Until I received the lunch invitation, I had more or less forgotten about them—except for driving past the seasonal Christmas tree stand or stumbling over the box to collect used eyeglasses at Central Library.

Another watermark on the continuum of volunteerism that uniquely characterizes America (and was so admired by Alexis de Tocqueville he dubbed us a “nation of joiners”), these clubs were begun by businessmen in the early part of the last century (Rotary is the granddaddy of them all, launching in 1905 and taking its name from the weekly “rotation” among the original conveners) in the industrial North and Midwest (Indianapolis, Chicago, Buffalo), likely on a tide of Social Darwinism.

Their members were businessmen (women were not admitted to Rotary, for example, until the 1980s); their passion service (“Service above Self”-Rotary), especially service to young people (“Friend of Youth”-Optimists); and their stated purpose, according to a Rotary wiki article, “to bring together business and professional leaders to provide humanitarian service, encourage high ethical standards in all vocations, and help build goodwill and peace in the world.” Today’s clubs are not only gender friendly but gender- preference friendly, their meetings apolitical, nonreligious, and open to anyone of any culture, race, and creed.

So whether the project be sponsorship of youth sports teams, writing letters to service men and women, administering eye exams in the public schools, organizing food drives, raising money to immunize children, and yes, selling trees at Christmas, this network of now international service clubs stands as proud testament to the value of community and the promise inherent in caring for one another.

Service clubs and their members are as necessary to the health and welfare of a community as public safety and roads maintenance. Beacons of civic engagement, their creed boldly declared through deed—to give a little means to give a lot to those most in need and least able to do for themselves, those hammered by hard times and harder luck, victims of abuse, neglect, and ignorance. In a few weeks, a former community organizer will take the oath of office as the 44th president of the United States. As the late great Chicagoan Studs Terkel, a proud heir of de Tocqueville’s, observed, “the community in action […] accomplishes more than any individual does, no matter how strong he may be.”

Thoughts from County Native and Arlington Public Library Director, Diane Kresh

Thoughts from County Native and Arlington Public Library Director, Diane Kresh

A capacity crowd was treated Dec. 2 to an inspiring performance by Pulitzer Prize winning author and New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, whose latest book, Hot Flat and Crowded, redefines the green revolution in common-sense terms and reaffirms that America has lost its groove and must change or, figuratively, die. I say performance because in a masterful, tale-spinning hour, punctuated with both humor and facts, his salient point–that America must innovate or else–put a new slant on the global climate change debate, taking it out of the realm of pure science and into where it matters most: the marketplace, where you must perform or perish.

That the clarion call to innovate took place in the Arlington Public Library’s Central Auditorium is another sign of the important role libraries play in communities across the nation. Not only do we bring in top-tier authors, public figures and thinkers to discuss the bleeding and leading wedge issues of our times and promote the free exchange of opinions and ideas. Our shelves are lined with innovations, failed schemes and dreams, the factual, the fanciful, the good, bad and the ugly–and that is as it should be.

There has long been a link between libraries and innovators. The nation’s first innovator/inventor-in-chief Thomas Jefferson gave up his personal library for the fledgling Library of Congress not once but twice. And Ben Franklin, no stranger to invention himself, started the nation’s first free lending library.

Friedman’s message was clear: the glass of lemonade is still half full. We have exactly enough time–starting now.

Watch the Thomas L. Friedman lecture online.