Greetings. If you are a library school student or a librarian thinking of working for the Los Angeles Public Library, please read this page first. I am not claiming that my experience is typical, or malicious, but along with dozens of other employees, I was furloughed with no warning and no unemployment benefits after eleven years of service at the City of Los Angeles, which I consider an immoral if not illegal violation of our rights as civil servants. Although I have found more suitable employment, I would caution any potential or current employees of the Los Angeles Public Library to weigh their options carefully, unless they would follow my mistakes.
I began my employment for the City of Los Angeles in the summer of 1996, as a substitute librarian. I was interviewed by Ms. Carmen Martinez and Ms. Fontayne Holmes, and based on this interview, hired as a full-time children's librarian at the Exposition Park Regional Branch, starting January 1997. I remained in this position until summer 1999. I had passed probation successfully six months after beginning full-time service, and believed that I was then protected by the Civil Service Rules of the City. My supervisor, Ms. Kathleen Strelioff, gave me consistently good evaluations, and I was very happy in my work for the city where I was born.
In the Summer of 1999 I transferred, following all procedures, to the Cahuenga Branch, the closest branch to my apartment and in the neighborhood where my mother and grandmother had grown up. I was the young adult librarian, serving the local high school and middle school students, and again performed this job faithfully and happily. In January of 2000, the area manager, Ms. Jennifer Lambelet Mencken, tragically died after climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro in Kenya. My supervisor, Mr. Arthur Pond, was chosen to serve as the acting area manager, and although I had only been at the branch for six months, I was considered best qualified to be the acting branch manager in his absence. I was the manager of the Cahuenga Branch for the next 18 months.
While I was acting manager, I undertook on my own time to support a citywide bond for library services, going door to door in the neighboring community of Silver Lake, which was slated to receive a new library branch in the bond. I distributed information to many local businesses, connected with the Silver Lake Chamber of Commerce, and even was interviewed on a local radio station, KBLT. The bond passed, and I had some hopes of perhaps becoming the branch manager at the new Silver Lake Library, even closer to my apartment.
After a year and a half as the acting manager, it became apparent that instead of building a library in Silver Lake, a branch would be built in Echo Park instead due to purely political pressure. I then made a crucial mistake; rather than continue to patiently wait to be promoted to branch manager, I chose to transfer once again, this time to the prestigious Central Library in Downtown Los Angeles. Had I remained at the Cahuenga Branch, I would probably still be there as the branch manager, but the administration of the Los Angeles Public Library would not promote or transfer my supervisor, so I was stuck as merely an acting manager. I applied for transfer to the Literature and Fiction Department, and my transfer was approved. I was enthusiastically accepted by my supervisor, Ms. Bette McDonough, and the principal librarian in charge of the department, Ms. Helene Mochedlover, who hoped that I would become the "tech" librarian for the department. I began work there in the summer of 2001.
UPDATE: The Silver Lake Branch Library began construction in the summer of 2007, and is scheduled to be opened sometime in the summer of 2009. According to my former colleagues, there will be no new librarians hired to staff this branch; all positions will be filled by transfers, leaving their previous jobs empty.
Within a year of transferring to the Literature and Fiction Department, every initiative I attempted was terminated. I attempted to rewrite the departmental web page but was not allowed to. I created a hotlist of all the bookstores in the City of Los Angeles and a comprehensive calendar of literary events they could contribute to, but was told that this effort was taking too much of my time...although I was never actually asked how much time I spent on the calendar (approximately two hours per month.) This incorrect action disrupted all the outreach I had achieved with the local bookseller community in Los Angeles. I asked for other duties but received none. For the next few years I did four to five hours of reference per day, processed the gift books, and nothing else. I was not the only talent being wasted; I observed no attempt at continuing education, no attempt to teach the public or plan for the future, and no interest in our opinions as experienced librarians. At this particular time, with tremendous change at other libraries, I was shocked at how ill-prepared the Los Angeles Public Library was for the future. I informed my supervisor that I was going to seek a more challenging position in the system, and she encouraged me.
At the same time, a friend who works as a counselor informed me that I had the beginning symptoms of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), probably caused by daily contact with a large number of mentally ill patrons who live in the Downtown area. Rather than transfer, I decided to go to intermittent status and become a substitute librarian again. Other librarians had taken such sabbaticals, working half-time as substitutes while they took a breather or finished other projects. I was told by my former supervisors and the principal librarian that I would be welcome to return to a full-time position whenever I liked. This was my second, and more permanent mistake. After nearly five years at the Central Library and a decade of service to the City of Los Angeles, I became a substitute in May 2006.
For the next two years I wrote a book about my experience in Downtown Los Angeles, Scream at the Librarian, and worked as a substitute at branch libraries all across the city. I never missed an assignment. In the fall of 2007, after nearly 18 months of half-time work, I decided to return to full-time work in one of the branches around the North Hollywood area, where I planned to buy a condominium. I waited for a retirement or a transfer at one of the branches in the East Valley region.
When I scheduled assignments for January of 2008, they had suddenly dwindled to one per week, instead of four or five. Within another month they were reduced to zero. Without any warning, all the hours usually assigned to substitutes were eliminated. Under the leadership of Mayor Villaraigosa, the City had mysteriously fallen $400 million in debt. I attempted desperately to transfer into over ten open positions, but even though I had been a branch manager and a loyal employee of the Los Angeles Public Library for over eleven years, I was denied every opportunity. In violation of the civil service rules, I believe, I was essentially terminated without severance pay or any other compensation. Though I had paid thousands of dollars in union dues to the Librarian's Guild, Local 2626 of AFSCME Council 36, they did not lift a finger to help me. Because I was technically still employed by the City of Los Angeles, I could not collect unemployment insurance. With zero income, I had about a month to find another job before I lost my apartment of 14 years. Three weeks later, I was rescued by the City of Burbank, a neighboring library system, who hired me as a half-time librarian at the end of February 2008. I worked for them nearly a year, when I was hired as the serials librarian for the City of Inglewood, California, where I still work today.
The terrible injustice done to me by the City of Los Angeles was by no means personal; indeed, dozens of substitutes were similarly affected. And unlike me, many of the other substitutes were retired librarians, men and women who worked for the City of Los Angeles for decades, and used their income as intermittent employees to supplement their pensions. They could not so easily find another job; I understand some have had to work in shops or restaurants. I find this treatment deplorable. As of this date, April of 2011, I've yet to hear an explanation for this harsh treatment from any employee of the City of Los Angeles in any respect, including any of my former supervisors.
If you are considering employment with the City of Los Angeles, I hope that you will take proper precautions after reading this account. My case may be unusual; that is for you to decide.
I also want to emphasize that this complaint is not meant to denigrate my current position, as the serials/electronic resources librarian for the City of Inglewood. On the contrary, the Inglewood Public Library has given me more responsibility than I received after a decade at the Los Angeles Public Library, and I am doing my best to live up to that charge, which is the relationship that a librarian wants with their library and their community.
For further information, please feel free to contact me at the e-mail address below. Thank you.
UPDATE: As of May 2009, I had still not received any notification from the Los Angeles Public Library as to my future. I contacted the personnel office and was told that since my employment was now "free" to the City, they would keep me on their rolls, even though I would be assigned no work and receive no pay. In order to transfer my pension and deferred compensation funds to my current employer, I decided to resign, even though this entailed losing over thirty percent of my pension contributions to taxes (and all of the City's contributions I earned towards my retirement over eleven years.) This amounted to some $10,000 of my own money and about $40,000 owed to me by the City of Los Angeles. Even so, I consider it a small price to pay to separate myself from this scurrilous organization.
In a letter I intended to write Ms. Holmes, who recommended me to be hired in 1996 but did nothing to save my job in 2008, I wrote the reasons why I finally decided to quit the Los Angeles Public Library (and talked two friends out of interviewing). However, she herself resigned in mid-2008, her career ended by the worst mayor and council that Los Angeles has had in the last 70 years.
UPDATE: In June 2009, the City of Los Angeles announced a bimonthy furlough day for all full-time employees and the possibility of over 1500 possible layoffs. My own employer, the City of Inglewood? A temporary hiring freeze and a maximum 10% budget cut. It's good to work in a well-managed city.
UPDATE: As of early 2010, I don't think I have to worry that any librarians will accidentally find their way to the Los Angeles Public Library...on the contrary, LAPL might be shedding jobs fairly soon. Perhaps I was lucky to be unjustly terminated...and find a more reliable employer. The incompetence of Mayor Villaraigosa and the City Council only compounds the incompetence of the library administration... The library staff is trying to convince the public to save their jobs here and here...though I must confess I'm not very sympathetic. Nobody helped me when I was a month from losing my apartment. So I wish them good luck.
UPDATE: On 16 June 2010, the Los Angeles Public Library eliminated 328 full-time equivalent positions, including about a hundred early retirements, over a hundred needed vacancies, and about 150 current employees laid-off. I hope those people will find better jobs soon, although there is very little hiring going on, but at least they will have health insurance and six months of unemployment insurance, which was denied me and the other substitutes in early 2008. Unfortunately, the people who should have lost their jobs have all been able to retire with their full pensions.
UPDATE: In July 2011, the Los Angeles Public Library began hiring "as-needed" civil service-exempt part-time librarians. Heed my warning; you will have no protection from your employer or your union.
