[Publib] Blackwater Regional Library

[Bruce Bumbalough]

The discussion about the low salary for MLS librarians at this library
is not new.   In another life, from 1992 - 1994, I managed the then
Walter Cecil Rawls Library and Museum, located in Courtland, VA.   It
was renamed Blackwater Regional Library after my departure.   If
Courtland rings a bell to anyone, it was once named Jerusalem and was
the town in which Nat Turner, late of the 1831 rebellion bearing his
name was executed.
 
The library served  four counties and one independent city in Tidewater
Virginia.  The library had no taxing authority.   Each year we had to
prepare a budget request for the governing body of the counties and
city.   A portion of the budget request had to include services that
were delivered from headquarters.  There was not much of a tax base
outside of the city of Franklin.  The land was mostly agricultural or
timber land.   Business was concentrated in the few populated areas.  
Commissioners were reluctant to send money out of their own counties
when the needs at home were so great.
 
Salaries in 1992 were abominable.  I was managing that whole operation
and earning about $35,000.   Clerical people made less than the fast
food counter people.  Many of the staff were trapped there so to speak
by family obligations.
 
I didn't even look for MLS staff when a professional opening came up,
because I knew it futile to try to hire a MLS person for the then
$18,000 minimum.   I tried to find the most qualified person I could for
the spot and paid then the best I could.   When the minimum wage was
raised about that time, I had to come up with moree money across the
salary scale because I had people earning that and working as single
person staffs in branch libraries.
 
People can scream all they want about boycotting low paying jobs, but
to tell a person whose spouse is in the area for the long haul that they
should take a job that pays less than ALA's recommended minimum is
asking them to make a 100% $ contribution to the effort when the others
screaming are paying lip service.
 
I left ALA in the mid nineties because I thought it too involved in
social issues and not paying enough attention to librarians.   Maybe we
need a American Librarian Association.   Maybe we need to pay more
attention to what we as professionals endure at times and stop worrying
about whether scrotum appears in a kid book.
 
My .02 cents
 
Bruce Bumbalough
late of Courtland, VA and now a Texan
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