College, city end venture

Less than two years after the grand opening of the North Lake Community Library in August 2002, the City of Irving and NLC have parted ways.

Beginning June 19, North Lake College will be in charge of running the library.

For the city, location was one of the concerns, said Patty Landers, Irving Public Library director. “I think people didn’t expect to find a public library on a college campus,” she said.

And location affected the circulation. According to an article in The Dallas Morning News, 97,000 public library items were checked out in the fiscal year 2002-2003, compared with 240,000 from the Valley Ranch library and 830,000 from the Central Library. “We wanted greater circulation of our items,” said Landers.

Lack of available parking space on campus was another concern. “Sometimes it wasn’t the most convenient place to park for our patrons,” she said.

The bad economy also factored into the decision. The city compared its financial investment in this joint venture branch library with that of other branches and found the cost to be way out of proportion.

“We were looking to see how we could be more cost-effective in providing pubic library service,” said Landers.

For the college, the catalyst for the termination of partnership was the re-accreditation. The visiting committee for the Southern Accreditation of Colleges and Schools made certain recommendations that dealt with the library and learning resources for students.

“In order to demonstrate to our accrediting agency that we were serious about the recommendations they had given us, we felt that management was one aspect of it that we would use to demonstrate that,” said Dr. Herlinda Martinez Glasscock, North Lake president.

The college will focus on these recommendations and put increased emphasis on academic collection once it takes over the management reins of the library.

But Landers said the transition will be smooth. “I think some people have gotten the notion that on June 19 it's going to be very abrupt and the public library is going to be on the street,” she said.

“And that is not the case at all. It will be a change in the management.”

Glasscock agreed. “There is not going to be a dramatic change,” she said. “It's going to be continuing academic services, continuing community services.”

Mary Ann Bolton, one of NLC's librarians, will assume the role of acting director of the library during the transition period, said Martha Hughes, NLC vice president of instruction.

And both Landers and Glasscock expect a seamless transition, although Glasscock doesn't know how long the transition will take. The 18 city employees will continue to serve at the library even after June 19.

To resolve transition issues, several committees with representation from the district, the college and the library are collaborating, said Landers.

However, this transition will not impact the children's services program that includes an active summer reading club.

“That's something that I know the college is interested in seeing continue,” said Landers.

But one issue that both agree needs to be resolved is their financial contributions. The college invested nearly $10.1 million in the library and owns it, whereas the city invested nearly $1.9 million of bond money. Glasscock said that both parties are working with attorneys to ensure appropriate share.

Despite the breakup, there are no hard feelings.

“This is a business decision,” said Landers. “There are no hard feelings.”

Glasscock agreed. “We were at the table together and we will continue to be at the table together.”

In fact, both sides are moving on. The city plans to open a library in the North Central area and is actively seeing 20,000-30,000 sq. ft. of space to lease, said Landers.

The college also plans to expand the scholarly contributions of its faculty, said Glasscock, who added that she has learned a great deal about public libraries. Landers said she has learned the importance of library instruction for the community college library.

Landers also learned that in a partnership, both parties need to be flexible and continually assess whether each is serving the people it's supposed to.

How will this affect other partnerships between city and college?

“The city and the college have partnerships that will continue on,” said Landers.