Confidence ballot
on Kane circulated

The material from his foes asks library
staffers their opinion of the boss

By Mary Adamski
Star-Bulletin

Some local library employees have borrowed a technique that led to the resignation of San Francisco librarian Kenneth Dowlin earlier this year by sending out a ballot soliciting library employees' opinion of state Librarian Bart Kane.

A group calling itself Coalition for Improved Libraries set the vote in motion this week after nearly a year of turmoil over the "outsourcing" contract, which Kane signed with Baker & Taylor, a North Carolina bookselling company, taking book selection for 49 state libraries out of the hands of local librarians.

Bart Kane:
His special assistant says
he doesn't "find it a threat
to the tenure of Mr. Kane. He
has been on the job for 15 years."

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The ballot stating: "I have confidence/no confidence in the management and leadership of state Librarian Bartholomew Kane" was sent to 497 librarians, technicians and assistants, said coalition spokeswoman Rebecca Bishop, a librarian at the Hawaii State Library.

A few outspoken opponents have appeared before the Board of Education and the state Legislature to attack the contract, and to criticize Kane for past decisions such as curtailment of library hours.

But Bishop said there is "fear that is permeating the system about speaking out. This vote is so important because it gives employees a chance to anonymously, confidentially provide a feedback on where the library is going."

Kane's special assistant John Penebacker said "I don't find it a threat to the tenure of Mr. Kane. He has been in the job for 15 years. There is no intention of Mr. Kane resigning. The Board of Education is the hiring authority, they are the ones to determine confidence, not the coalition."

Penebacker said: "No one has been stifled nor threatened for speaking their mind about the particular issue. These people have been appearing before the Legislature, before the Board of Education, in the public media, and said things that are questionable. In the nine years I've been here, no one has been fired for speaking out. We go to the mat to save jobs."

The League of Women Voters will receive the ballots - which are due by May 20 - validate and count them, Bishop said. The results will be presented to the Board of Education.

The point of the balloting is "to send a message to the Board of Education to consider the voice and experience of front-line employees when making decisions affecting the Hawaii State Public Library System," said a coalition news release.

Bishop said library employees approached their union, the Hawaii Government Employees Association, about conducting the balloting.

"It was met with some reluctance on their part," she said.

Since the concerned group includes employees who are not members of the Librarians Association of Hawaii, the coalition organized as a separate entity rather than involve the professional organization, she said.

HGEA Executive Director Russell Okata responded to a question about the ballot Friday with a statement: "We are, of course, fully aware of the concerns expressed by many librarians. They are conscientious employees and consummate professionals, and we take their concerns seriously. The union will continue to work with the librarians to resolve their many grievances."

Libraries throughout the country are watching the Hawaii library controversy, according to Norman Oder, associate editor of Library Journal, published in New York.

For one thing, it comes in the wake of a successful ouster effort by the library employees union in San Francisco, whose overwhelming "no confidence" vote led Dowlin to resign in January. The issue was not the same; Dowlin was criticized over his financial management ability.

Secondly, the subject of "outsourcing" is a hot topic in libraries as in other government agencies. Many libraries contract out services from cataloging to processing to limited book selection, Oder said. Hawaii is the first large system to turn over the selection as well as purchase of books to a commercial operation, said Oder, whose March 15 edition featured Kane and the outsourcing subject as cover story.

Critics here complain that the North Carolina-based Baker & Taylor - which gets paid $20.94 per book regardless of its list price - fails to send reference volumes, current best sellers, children's and young adult books, but sends an inordinate number of paperback fiction and duplicates. The 5 1/2-year, $11.2 million contract went into effect in July.

An effort in the state Legislature to scuttle the contract was watered down to language that requires that local librarians are again involved in book selection.

Meanwhile, a 90-day period to resolve "serious deficiencies" in performance, set in February by the Board of Education, has run out.

Penebacker said "We are communicating with Baker & Taylor that we wish to extend the 90-day schedule ... to do a further analysis of their responses on areas of nonconformance." He declined to say what the booksellers have failed to do. "Until the analysis is complete, it would not be prudent for us to release that."