Last Wednesday, the Urbana Free Library held a special board meeting for public comment so that Urbana residents could speak about the recent rapid weeding process that occurred under the library’s executive director Debra Lissak.

At this meeting, many Urbana residents were in agreement that weeding is a necessary process, but were upset with the way in which it was done.

Long-time Urbana resident Shirley Stillinger was one of the individual’s that did not like how the weeding was done and believed that “using words like misunderstanding or misconception” were unacceptable.

“It’s the way in which it was done,” Stillinger said. “It was the drastic, draconian way in which it was done that I think people are objecting to.”

Other residents were concerned with Lissak’s leadership abilities. 

“We have a real crisis of leadership with what’s been implemented,” said Kate McDowell, faculty member at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science.

Three children’s librarians did defend Lissak, saying that weeding is a necessary process that happens in the library and had not been done in awhile. Each of them added that after the children’s section of the library had been weeded, circulation increased.

The last main topic of public comment was about hurting the library’s reputation and losing the trust of the community.

“This is a jewel in the city of Urbana, and I don’t want it to be tarnished or turned into a lump of coal,” Urbana resident Tom Moon.

Although Lissak said she did not feel comfortable talking to reporters, her online apology posted on the library’s website refutes the claim made by many residents that Lissak wanted to remove all nonfiction books published before 2003.

“All nonfiction items with publication dates over 10 years old are being considered as candidates for weeding,” Lissak said in the apology. “There are other factors that affect the decision including the number of checkouts, the last checkout date, whether the information is outdated and what else we own in a particular area.”

At the regularly scheduled board meeting June 11, Urbana residents questioned Lissak on what she told the staff for executing the weeding. Lissak said she made a spreadsheet and highlighted any nonfiction book published before 2003 in red.

“The instructions were to look at everything that was 10 years old and to mark anything that they wanted to pull back,” Lissak said at the board meeting. “When they (the library staff) completed a list, they sent it back to me, and I took out the things that they wanted to pull back and the remainders I sent off to the shelvers to pull.”

However, Anne Phillips, director of adult services who was out of town at the time of the weeding, said at the same board meeting that her staff felt that Lissak gave a different impression on how the weeding was supposed to be done. 

She said that the group had not been told to look at the condition of the books when given the spreadsheet of books and was given the impression to do it as quickly as possible. One staff member said she had become more and more uncomfortable with how fast everything was preceding.

“I wasn’t here and that has been kind of distressing because the staff apparently felt that they were supposed to behave in a way that was apparently not what you had intended,” Phillips said. “Right now, I have to say, the staff do not feel comfortable with what has happened with nonfiction.”

Lissak said in her online apology that Better World Books, a used book retail company where the weeded books were sent, has agreed to send back the library’s latest shipment. 

“This shipment contained all of the books that we sent thus far from art, gardening, pets and cooking,” Lissak said in the apology. “When these arrive, staff will re-evaluate the titles and select items to return to the collection.”

As for why the weeding is happening, Lissak said in an question-and-answer page on the library’s website about the weeding that this is in part to make browsing books easier for library users. It is also to free up floor space for more seating in the library and to allow for more space of newly released books. Lissak also said the library is installing technology so that it will have self-checkout stations, something that 40 percent of residents would use, according to a survey done by the University’s Graduate School for Library and Information Sciences.

Kat can be reached at [email protected].