The Watha T Daniels Library


Library Protest Banner
Originally uploaded by In Shaw.

This weekend I noticed someone put up the banner (poorly shown in this picture) reading “Free Our Library”. Which must be a protest about the fence, which essentially closes the unoffical homeless summer camp that had been on the library premises. It cannot be a statement about the library itself as it has been closed for so long I don’t remember when it did close.
Also it is not really a library anymore. It is a ‘library’ building, but without a librarian with an ALA approved MLS, it is just a badly run bookstore with no coffee. It does us no good to free the building if it isn’t going to be a functional library. That’s what the community needs is a functional library. Good lord only knows when that will be.

4 thoughts on “The Watha T Daniels Library”

  1. The banner is one of two that were hung, along with a number of yellow ribbons, on the fence around the library last Friday, August 11, 2006, as part of a rally organized by the Friends of Watha T. Daniel Library, of which I am the president, and the DC Library Renaissance Project (www.savedclibraries.org). See the article and photos in today’s Post District Extra section for details http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/16/AR2006081600572.html, or read the press release pasted below.

    Alex

    Alexander M. Padro
    Commissioner, ANC 2C01
    1519 8th Street, NW
    Washington, DC 20001-3205
    202-518-3794 * Email: PadroANC2C@aol.com
    Website: http://members.aol.com/PadroANC2C

    If you are as upset as I am about the abject failure of the DC Public Library to meet its commitments to Shaw residents regarding the replacement of the Watha T. Daniel/Shaw Neighborhood Library, I ask you to join me at a short rally in front of the branch at 8th and R Streets, NW, on Friday, August 11, 2006, at 10:30 AM. We will hear from neighborhood residents, young and old, about how their lives have been impacted by no longer having a library in our neighborhood. The media have been invited to help share our concerns with the general public.

    Our branch library’s closure for almost two years has angered a neighborhood whose many low income families rely heavily on the library’s resources. Interim services have not been provided as promised, depriving vulnerable youth and seniors of computer access and other services.

    Quite frankly, we’re looking at a string of broken promises. First they closed our library. Then they canceled plans to rebuild it. Then they failed to fulfill their promise to provide temporary library services by the end of the school year. It took the library system 20 months just to put construction fencing around the building. Not having a library open in the neighborhood has contributed to the increase in youth crime in the neighborhood. As a former member of the DC Public Library Board of Trustees, I am appalled at how completely dysfunctional our city’s library system has become.

    If you’re fed up with the way the DC Public Library has been treating our neighborhood, please come to the rally and ask your neighbors to join you. We especially would like to see parents with their children there, as well as seniors.

    Alex

    Alexander M. Padro
    Commissioner, ANC 2C01
    1519 8th Street, NW
    Washington, DC 20001-3205
    202-518-3794 * Email: PadroANC2C@aol.com
    Website: http://members.aol.com/PadroANC2C

  2. At the Mt. Vernon Square meeting on Tuesday, Officer Barnes said the fence was put up in response to complaints the police had received about people using the site for public sex, an outdoor toilet, and mooning passers by, among other things. He also said the building was in worse shape than was thought.

    I agree that this reflects shameful neglect and that the branch library should be reopened as soon as possible. That said, the Martin Luther King Library isn’t that far away and easily accessible by metro, bus, bike, or even (gasp!) walking. I wonder how many people who are vocally upset about plans for MLK actually use the library.

  3. Rally at 10:30 AM on a Friday? Girl’s gotta work.[insert rant about M-Th people and people who wander into work after 11pm]

  4. Re: scheduling, the rally was timed for maximimum press coverage. We got seven newspaper reporters out. Four articles have appeared, three others are likely from biweeklies and monthlies, plus a News 4 segment last week. ‘Nuff said.

    Alex

    Alexander M. Padro
    Commissioner, ANC 2C01
    1519 8th Street, NW
    Washington, DC 20001-3205
    202-518-3794 * Email: PadroANC2C@aol.com
    Website: http://members.aol.com/PadroANC2C

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