Library Board

For more than a year, thousands of Howard County residents have been waiting for the central library they love to reopen. Their patience will be rewarded Sunday when the building on Little Patuxent Parkway where they once checked out 80,000 items a month will be back in business, refurbished, reorganized and filled with light to meet the 21st century. A $5.4 million, top-to-bottom renovation is finally over, though a brief tour yesterday found workers busy putting on finishing touches.

MOUNT AIRY resident Andrew Mason recently was honored by the Carroll County Public Library board of trustees for his role in establishing the Mount Airy library branch. In appreciation of his efforts, Mason was presented with a framed certificate by Linda Mielke, library director. In 1964, Mount Airy Kiwanis Club, headed by Mason, formed a steering committee with the purpose of establishing a community library in town. The Carroll County commissioners gave the town $3,000 to refurbish and furnish a room above the town office.

Carroll County Public Library trustees defended last night the way the library board selects its members, regardless of what the Carroll delegation to the Maryland General Assembly thinks. "The board has one employee. That's the director," said board of trustees member Kathleen Campanella. "We direct her to help in the recruitment of library board members. This was an established tradition for quite some time. I have no problem with the way that's been carried out." The library board's chairman, Calvin Seitz, was asked by Del. Joseph M. Getty to discuss with trustees Director Linda Mielke's involvement with library board appointments.

A bill in the House of Delegates designed to expand the pool of people who serve on Carroll County Public Library's board of trustees has been withdrawn. The Carroll delegation's bill, which would have allowed Carroll commissioners to appoint members to the voluntary board from "other sources" without the recommendation of the standing library board, had been opposed by the library board and the library director. "We have reached an understanding with the Library Board of Trustees and believe the issues can be resolved without legislation," Del. Nancy R. Stocksdale, a Republican, wrote in a letter this week withdrawing the measure.

Library board is no place for political favors As a county resident, I am disgusted by the legislation members of the Carroll County delegation to Annapolis have proposed regarding appointments to the Carroll County Library Board. Carroll County faces innumerable problems, including crime, school violence and over crowding, drugs, infrastructure inadequacy, the lack of public transportation and environmental issues, to name just a few. These issues seem more important than ensuring a seat on the library board for a small group of people who only want to force their vision of acceptability on the general public.

ANNAPOLIS - Carroll library officials told a House committee yesterday that changing the way the county selects people to serve on the library's board of trustees would have a "chilling effect" on the community. Linda Mielke, library director, said she feared the Carroll delegation's proposal to alter the pool of candidates would open the selection process and put people with narrow political and religious agendas on the board. "We're looking for people who have a special interest in the Carroll County Public Library," Mielke told the Ways and Means Committee during a hearing on the bill yesterday afternoon.

Republican Del. Nancy R. Stocksdale has introduced a bill that would expand the pool of people who serve on Carroll County Public Library's board of trustees. But the bill is generating controversy because it would change the way the library board is appointed. Stocksdale's bill, which is scheduled for a hearing today in the House Ways and Means Committee, aims to allow Carroll commissioners to "select a member of the board of library trustees from nominees submitted by the board ... or other sources."

Eldersburg library patrons could soon be taking out a cup of coffee with the latest John Grisham and Harry Potter novels. Carroll County Public Library is considering adding a vending machine area to the bustling South Carroll branch when a 3,000-square- foot expansion and renovation are complete. "The rule at libraries was always that you have to shush and you can't eat," said library director Linda Mielke, who presided over a recent library board meeting where the issue was discussed.

For some 150 major Enoch Pratt Free Library donors, it was a chance to get up close and personal with a literary legend as the Enoch Pratt Society presented its Lifetime Literary Achievement Award to author John Updike. At a reception before the awards dinner, guests had a chance to chat with the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner and, perhaps, get a book personally inscribed by him. The normally hushed library lobby was filled with the rumble of conversation, as Updike warmly greeted many of those who came to honor him. Included in the group: Bob Hillman, event chair; Ginny Adams, and Peggy Heller, event committee members; Cecil E. Flamer, library board president / chair; Myron Oppenheimer, Ed Brody, Dana Reed, Tyson Tildon, Mary Jo Wagandt, Anne Winter West and Mary Baily Weiler, board members; Dr. Carla Hayden, library executive director; Ron Owens, Friends of the Library president; David M. Schwaber, Monarch Rubber Co. president; Sig Shapiro, Samuel Shapiro & Co. CEO; Eddie Brown, Brown Capital Management president; Joan Marshall, Maryland Prepaid College Trust executive director; Julius Westheimer, Ferris Baker Watts managing director; Gilbert Sandler, Abell Foundation consultant; Dee O'Horan, Radisson Hotel Cross Keys corporate sales manager; and Dr. Emile Bendit, Baltimore psychiatrist.

THE FLAWED experiment to mix adult and children's books at North Carroll branch library abruptly ended last week in the wake of consistent public criticism. Let's hope this bad idea has been put to rest for good -- so the county's treasured library system can continue to provide the resources and service that make Carroll the statewide leader in library usage. Childhood values and assisted suicide. Puberty and passionate lovemaking. These were some of the topics of juxtaposed books that upset parents helping children to search for titles at the North Carroll branch over the past four months.