During a June 16 evening meeting in the Beeton auditorium at the Toronto Research Library, 789 Yonge St., the Toronto Public Library (TPL) Board brusquely bolted two more neighborhood libraries, including Cedarbrae district library at 545 Markham Rd., which co-holds TPL’s Black and Caribbean Heritage Collection. Judging from previous TPL handling of its branch shutdowns, and current TPL statements, the "closure-renovation" of Cedarbrae may soon deny the Collection to area youth, the public and scholars.

TPL’s website expounds: "This collection is recognized as one of the most comprehensive Black and Caribbean heritage collections in Canada. It is an invaluable resource for the Black and Caribbean communities as well as students and researchers."

The Collection groups major works by militant, highly literate, ex-slave Frederick Douglass, and others in the anti-slavery, Black self-determination tradition.

For example, the Collection includes Frederick Douglass: Selected Speeches and Writings, edited by Philip S. Foner, (Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 1999) Call number 973.8092 DOU.

See the Frederick Douglass 1850 Rochester lecture reproduced below.

While each of these works is powerful in itself, the collection derives its literary value and educational truth from assembly and aggregation of materials. Visitors "see" and "learn" not only from the individual books, magazines & other elements within the collection, but also from the overall impression created by the group as a whole.

Counting three already closed branches (Bloor/Gladstone, Dufferin/St. Clair and Thorncliffe) this new pair raises to five the total shuttered as of July 22 in TPL’s multi-year "closure-renovation" program. I criticized this anti-intellectual campaign in "Libraries Endangered," The ACTivist, June 14.

TPL’s reasons for this outbreak remain largely unspecified, but justifications hitherto published are imprecise like those advanced for Jane/Dundas, where linear shelf space visibly shrunk and sightlines deteriorated following 2006-2008 "closure-renovation."

TPL’s June 9 news release "Brentwood Branch Scheduled for Renovation & Expansion" announced yet another closure impending in 2009 of Brentwood district library, 36 Brentwood Rd. N.

In under three minutes on June 16, TPL’s Board concurred passively with executive staff plans shortly to shutter Cedarbrae and Kennedy/Eglinton, 2380 Eglinton Ave. E. The agenda distributed to spectators at the Board meeting suggested:

"Kennedy/Eglinton Branch - Closure for Renovation and Expansion;

Cedarbrae Branch – Closure for Renovation."

During the meeting’s first hour, the Board dialogued meaningfully on donor recognition, sponsorships and naming opportunities in TPL fundraising initiatives, especially those concerning children; revisions to the Board’s 2008-2011 "strategic plan;" and other topics.

Discourse and questioning ceased, however, when Board Chair Kathy Gallagher Ross tabled the "closure-renovations."

Thoughtful, independent Board members could then have resisted railroading and queried executives on at least five substantive issues:

Since Cedarbrae co-holds TPL’s Black and Caribbean Heritage Collection, which aspires to cover all areas of Black and West Indian experience and culture, what plans does administration offer to safeguard school, community and scholarly access to this Collection in its entirety?

Why is TPL administration tonight specifically designating Cedarbrae and Kennedy/Eglinton for shutdown? What special "expansion" is planned at Kennedy/Eglinton? Will Cedarbrae also undergo "expansion?"

What are the proposed Kennedy/Eglinton and Cedarbrae branch closure dates? At what point will patrons & public reliably learn exact reopening times? How will this closure and reopening information be provided to citizens?

If the Board rejects the shutdown proposals tonight, what alternative plans has executive staff advanced to meet currently-declared needs to renovate these two branches? What precisely are these needs, and what prevented administration from addressing such library plant shortcomings until now?

An especially prudent member might have inquired:

What are staff’s "closure-renovation" budgets? May we know the true cost per item of the physical closure-renovation activities, if staff writes itemized renovation plans?

I imagine that beforehand, members might have received answers to these questions privately, or could have been exposed to other argumentation for the closures.

Sadly, however, no case for the "closure-renovations" was heard on June 16, and the thirteen members, including five City Councilors (Ainslie, Davis, Lee, Perruzza and Vaughan) rubber-stamped administration designs. Their dead silence contrasted strikingly with lively board engagement minutes earlier on other library matters.

An experienced TPL employee recently interpreted Board acquiescence in executive staff planning for "closure-renovation" of Kennedy/Eglinton and Cedarbrae:

"The board will automatically accept 90 to 95 percent of senior staff recommendations. That’s the consensus here at TPL."

COLLECTION INFORMATION UNAVAILABLE

On June 18, two days after the Board’s formal acquiescence in "closure-renovation," I telephoned Cedarbrae and Kennedy/Eglinton, seeking branch closure information. No reception or second-line staff could provide the shutdown date of their facility, or an approximate reopening date.

Each contact could only advise that the admittedly relevant dates I sought would be determined eventually by TPL’s "closure-renovation" contractor.

On July 4, I spoke by telephone with TPL’s Albert Campbell/Cedarbrae/Malvern Area manager Magdalena Vanderkooy, who reiterated earlier district staff disclaimers of Cedarbrae "closure-renovation" knowledge. Ms Vanderkooy said she did not know the name of the Cedarbrae "closure-renovation" contractor. She was unable to clearly articulate TPL’s potential plans to protect & safeguard the Black and Caribbean Heritage Collection during Cedarbrae renovation.

I concluded from librarian Vanderkooy and other staff concerned with Cedarbrae or the Black and Caribbean Heritage Collection that TPL will readily search for a title I might specify to determine its potential location in the library system. However, upon commencement of "closure-renovation" activities, TPL will no longer show me the Collection at Cedarbrae.

TPL’s expectation that I must choose, or "cherry-pick" individual Black and Caribbean Heritage titles in order to locate & study these documents in context significantly disrupts the spirit of the Collection.

My face-to-face interviews at TPL’s "reopening" festivities on February 4 at Jane/Dundas and on May 29 at S. Walter Stewart revealed the silencing effect on "closure-renovation" information exercised by the Toronto architect-engineer-developer industry.

Stephen Teeple of Teeple Architects welcomed guests at Jane/Dundas. Teeple Architects was named as the facility’s "closure-renovation contractor" on TPL’s Jane/Dundas renovation flyer. I asked Teeple personally at noon for an opportunity to discuss his firm’s role in the "closure-renovation," and he assented. Despite my reminder to him, Teeple subsequently failed to grant the interview.

The Teeple firm also ignored my 9 September 2007 inquiry at info@teeplearch.com seeking an interview for a TPL-related letter "Why close libraries?" I published in Hi-Rise, a Toronto apartment dweller monthly, November 2007.

SPONTANEOUS CLIFFCREST CLOSURE

My chronologies of TPL’s Cliffcrest and Jane/Dundas interruptions further reveal management’s wilfull pursuit with contractors of spontaneous and sporadic "closure-renovation" plans.

On Tuesday, 19 February 2008, TPL announced "Cliffcrest Branch to Close for Relocation and Expansion: Branch Located within same Plaza will be 75 percent larger."

TPL’s communiqué stated: "On Saturday March 1 at 5 pm, Cliffcrest Branch will close to relocate to a different unit in the same plaza. When the library reopens in April 2008, it will be 75 percent larger."

Only twelve days transpired between the February 19 announcement and the declared closure of Cliffcrest on March 1.

In subsequent telephone conversation with branch staff, I learned that the hasty Cliffcrest "relocation" was triggered by one contractor’s report of their unexpected access to basic structural material.

SECRETIVE JANE/DUNDAS REOPENING DATE

On 23 September 2006 TPL closed Jane/Dundas "for a major renovation," chirping to readers in an illustrated flyer: "Look for a NEW Jane/Dundas Branch opening in fall 2007!"

The flyer encouraged area citizens to patronize "nearby branches" including Runnymede, which TPL had already shuttered from 21 January 2004-8 June 2005.

On 1 January 2007 TPL’s quarterly Whats On January-March 2007 gushed: "Two more locations of the Toronto Public Library closed for major renovations this past fall, and judging by the success of the several libraries that have been revitalized over the past two years, Jane/Dundas and S. Walter Stewart are expected to deliver the same open, inviting spaces that Torontonians have come to appreciate [Jane/Dundas] will reopen to the public by this fall."

A special meeting of the TPL Board on 25 July 2007 delayed the re-opening of Jane/Dundas from fall 2007 to "2008," proclaiming a "hiring freeze" which would retard for months the long-scheduled fall 2007 reopening. The TPL communiqué announcing this delay offered Ana-Maria Critchley as their media contact.

I wrote Ms Critchley on 20 August 2007 requesting the exact calendar date of Jane/Dundas reopening. She did not acknowledge my inquiry.

On 24 January 2008, a TPL communiqué announced "Jane/Dundas to reopen." The news release offered Edward Karek as their media contact. On January 25, I emailed Mr Karek at the address provided seeking a 25-30 minute voice interview on the Jane/Dundas branch reopening. Karek did not acknowledge my inquiry.

At the Jane/Dundas reopening gala on 4 February 2008, I met Linda Hazzan, Director, Marketing & Communications, TPL’s fifth most senior executive. I told Ms Hazzan that communicators Critchley and Karek had failed to acknowledge my email requests for information on the Jane/Dundas reopening, and asked her to explain the miscommunication. Hazzan seemed interested and offered to meet me at Jane/Dundas for this explanation two days later at 10 am. I sent an email to her on the evening of February 4 reminding her of this meeting and of my concerns. However, a few minutes before 10 am on February 6, Linda Hazzan cancelled the scheduled meeting, citing poor weather conditions in Toronto that morning.

In summary, Toronto Public Library administration has undertaken deep & extensive cuts in branch availability, for lengthy & indefinite periods of time, usually without Board scrutiny. Some residents, like those near Runnymede and Jane/Dundas are hurt by consecutive branch shutdowns.

TPL’s public communications function, currently labeled "Marketing & Communications," stages & promotes "reopening" spectacles, yet bypasses requests for "closure" and "reopening" information.

Plainly speaking, TPL’s management of "closure-renovations" is arbitrary and unaccountable.

TPL’s chronic irresponsibility, which I criticized here on June 14, has now begun further to tear the social fabric of Toronto and Canada by jeopardizing public access to what library administration correctly calls "an invaluable Black and Caribbean community heritage."

The public is entitled to attend forthcoming Monday evening Board meetings at 789 Yonge St., steps north of Bloor St., on the following scheduled late-2008 dates: September 15, October 20, November 24 and December 15. TPL commits in advance to confirm these dates and to provide agendas and supply the public with meeting particulars.

Residents can also discuss "closure-renovations" with the five City Councillors named above as TPL Board members.

I encourage meeting attendees and others to contact The ACTivist to share their specific concerns, observations and comments.

FREDERICK DOUGLASS ANTI-SLAVERY LECTURE

Militant ex-slave Frederick Douglass delivered "Lecture 1 on slavery" in Corinthian Hall, Rochester, New York, 1 December 1850. Douglas said:

"A very slight acquaintance with the history of American slavery is sufficient to show that it is an evil of which it will be difficult to rid this country … it is an evil of gigantic proportions, and of long standing."

"Its origin in this country dates back to the landing of the Pilgrims on Plymouth Rock – It was here more than two centuries ago. The first spot poisoned by its leprous presence, was a small plantation in Virginia. The slaves at that time number only twenty. They have now increased to the frightful number of three millions; and from that narrow plantation they are now spread over by far the largest half of the American Union. Indeed, slavery forms an important part of the entire history of the American people. Its presence may be seen in all American affairs. It has become interwoven with all American institutions, and has anchored itself in the very soil of the American Constitution. It has thrown its paralyzing arm over freedom of speech, and the liberty of the press; and has created for itself morals and manners favorable to its own continuance…"

"It is perfectly well understood at the South that to educate a slave is to make him discontented with slavery, and to invest him with a power which shall open to him the treasures of freedom; and since the objective of the slaveholder is to maintain complete authority over his slave, his constant vigilance is exercised to prevent everything which militates against, or endangers the stability of his authority. Education being among the most menacing influences, and, perhaps, the most dangerous, is, therefore, the most cautiously guarded against."

Douglass concluded his message :

"I well remember when my mistress first announced to my master that she had discovered that I could read. His face colored at once, with surprise and chagrin. He said that ‘I was ruined and my value as a slave destroyed; that a slave should know nothing but to obey his master.’"

Pages 164-168 of Frederick Douglass: Selected Speeches and Writings, Toronto Public Library Black and Caribbean Heritage Collection.