Dear Mr. Constant,

Librarians make up the smallest percentage of the workforce at SPL, yet they are given the largest voice and likewise make the biggest stink whenever administrators don't do as they say. The problem seems to be one of a privileged, over-educated, over-valued minority thinking it should run the show. Librarians are not the only ones with ideas - or the only good ones at that. Have you spoken with any of the "lowly" employees, janitors or pages, - what do they think of management? Many of us at SPL are quite happy with our leadership, are very happy to have jobs (great ones, in fact) and don't think we are so special as to warrant a "vote" on everything management decides.

Sincerely,
A satisfied employee

Dear Mr. Constant,

The library board is bound by the same state open meeting laws that affect all other city boards and is equally transparent. Their meetings are a matter of public record and are, I believe, televised.

I encourage the public to look at the backgrounds of the library board members. They are people of high professional accomplishment, have long records of public service to our community and serve the public library system, its patrons and its employees with great dedication and competence.

The resignation of Michael Parham is a great loss to the Seattle Public Library and I am sorry to see it treated so off-offhandedly.

Please keep covering our library system. Please also keep learning more about it, its history, its processes and governance, its culture. I think that you've made a beginning at covering this beat, but that there is a lot more to learn if you are to write about it with real knowledge, insight and nuance.

Thank you.

Because we don't get the chance to have these conversations in the work place, I feel I need to respond to "knows a good job when sees one."

As a librarian, it doesn't hurt for us to hear that we can be whiny and complaining and seem ungrateful. That's fair. Speaking for myself, I love my job, I love working for the library and serving the public.

Perhaps my graduate program did give me, and others, the sense that we were entering into MORE than a job--into a profession where we would have some voice in changing the face of libraries. In class after class we were encouraged to think outside the box and come up with innovative ideas.

Now, here I am, full of ideas, full of thoughts and hopes and dreams for my library system, and very few outlets for myself and other staff--not just librarians--to bring those forward.

Dissent doesn't mean I don't dearly love and value my job.

But there is something wrong when people start feeling this disenfranchised and demoralized.

Maybe you don't want a vote, but I think you and I deserve one.