Four Critics Of SFPL Must Eat Their Words (fwd)

[Publib Poster]

Sender: Gvgriffin at aol.com
Subject: Four Critics Of SFPL Must Eat Their Words

Oh-h-h-h Bill Hale where are you? I think your vision 
must be blurred? I noted this litttle gem was never posted. 
	
	"...The two librarians who compiled the 
	erroneous calculations with Baker and 
	Biller were described by colleagues as 
	"veteran professionals" familiar with 
	the old Main...."

Oh gee --now lets just guess what 'leaders' promoted
this little outing? Just adding to that long list of 
theirs. This article dates back 'six months ago!!'
Are we beinging to get the picture folks? Were the
security cammeras rolling??  Who or better yet --what 
dept would still need to retain keys to the old building??
The picture is getting brighter. 
THE HISTORY LESSON CONTINUES.
Gisele V. Griffin, SF
-------------------------------------------------------------
Saturday, Aug. 24, 1996
Page A 1 - 1996 San Francisco Examiner
"Four Critics Of SFPL Must Eat Their Words"

Gerald D. Adams
EXAMINER URBAN PLANNING WRITER

	An embarrassed team of library critics admits that 
	it made a "very serious error" in figuring shelf 
	space at the abandoned Main Library and that, 
	contrary to its calculations, the new Main actually 
	has more room for books than the old.

       "I have to wipe egg off my face," historian Walter 
	Biller said Friday. "It was an honest math error."

	Biller, novelist Nicholson Baker and two anonymous 
	librarians broke into the closed old Main with tape 
	measures and came up with figures purporting to show 
	that the building contained 49 miles of book shelves, 
	compared with 30.7 miles for the new Main.

	Library administrators insisted the old building 
	had 21.6 miles. Friday, while not giving in altogether,
	the amateur sleuths admitted that even by their 
	numbers the old Main had 29 miles of shelves slightly 
	less than the total in the new, $140 million building.

	Baker was so red-faced on learning of the mistake that 
	on Friday he typed a 600-word confession on The Well, 
	a bulletin board for on-line computer subscribers.

	"I did my best to be accurate," he wrote, blaming 
	the mistake on one of the skeptics' use of an 
	inaccurate diagram of the old Main's seven-story-high 
	closed stacks.

	"The person who was misled by the wall chart feels 
	horrible as you can imagine," Baker wrote. "My 
	credibility . . . is now deservedly suspect."

	Baker said he had gone public with his admission 
	because "people were saying, "Nice going. Tell us 
	about your sleuthing in the stacks."

	"My feeling is, you've got to tell the truth. For 
	me to be associated with a figure that wrong is a 
	nightmare. I'm twisting because I'm cast as the 
	ringleader."

	Baker and Biller have contended that the new Main's 
	capacity is inadequate to house the library's 
	collection. They have sought assurances that volumes 
	now stored in Brooks Hall, the former convention 
	hall at Civic Center, and left inside the old Main 
	will be retained.

	Library sticks by its numbers

	Kathy Page, chief of the Main Library, refused to 
	accept the group's latest calculation and stuck by 
	the official estimate of 21.6 miles of shelving at 
	the old Main.=20

	The sleuths' accusation had raised so much concern 
	within library ranks that on Friday, Page invited 
	an Examiner reporter and photographer to tour stacks, 
	nooks and crannies of the nearly deserted old Main 
	for an inspection of her staff's measurement methods.

	The tour revealed little except for the difficulty 
	of gauging spaces in a building where books could
	be squirreled into a series of warrens, utility 
	rooms and seven-story-high stacks.

	Page said she would invite the rebel faction to 
	show its documentation "so we can compare notes."

	"Nothing can be exactly accurate," Page allowed. 
	"There has to be a margin for error."

	"Veteran pros' contributed

	The two librarians who compiled the erroneous 
	calculations with Baker and Biller were described 
	by colleagues as "veteran professionals" familiar 
	with the old Main.

	Biller said the team had probably botched its 
	figuring during the 4-1/4-hour foray because 
	"instead of the shelves in the east stacks being 
	40 feet long, I think the number they used was 
	more like 80."

	One of the two librarians, still pleading anonymity, 
	speculated that the mistake had been made "in haste 
	because we got very nervous being there and 
	counting madly."