Former W. Dale Clark Employee and Others Speak Out About Library Demolition
By Pete Fey
I worked at the W. Dale Clark library on three separate occasions, spread out from October 2007 to March 2016. The news that the building is to be demolished and replaced with a skyscraper pains me, as the library has been an instrumental part of my professional life, and one of the main reasons I ended up going to library school, from which I will graduate this May.
Nevertheless, the city’s decision to tear down the library angers me much more as a citizen of Omaha, as I think it demonstrates the cold-hearted nihilism that lies at the heart of most decisions made in this city, the complete rejection of community in favor of a capitalist realism that can only build, build, build, destroy, destroy, destroy.
Of course, it is no surprise to me that city officials do not care about the W. Dale Clark library; working there made this abundantly clear. From the city budgets that would cut our hours, to the cops that would disdainfully patrol the building, harassing patrons, the message I consistently received from the city government was that the library was tolerated, but not embraced.
Pete Fey
If the building is outdated, it is because the city has not provided the library with enough funds to keep the building up to date; if the building is inefficient, it is because the city has made it nearly impossible for it to be efficient.
Photo credit: Lawrence Public Library, Kansas
Most of the time I worked there the library didn’t even have enough money to hire a full-time janitor, meaning that when accidents happened in the bathroom we would have no choice but to put up an “Out of Order” sign, an obviously problematic solution for a building ostensibly built to serve the public. All of which is to say that I find it deeply ironic to hear proponents of the library’s demolition point to the building’s purported outdatedness or inefficiency as reasons for why it has to go. It is like inviting someone over to your house and then yelling at that guest for not cleaning up your living room before they arrived.
If the building is outdated, it is because the city has not provided the library with enough funds to keep the building up to date; if the building is inefficient, it is because the city has made it nearly impossible for it to be efficient.
It does not take a library lover to see the message implicit in the decision to anchor the new Gene Leahy Mall with a corporate headquarters instead of a library. Business rules Omaha. Whatever we can do collectively, for the good of all, runs a distant second to the private accomplishments of the few. Just remember that when they don’t let you use the bathroom at the Mutual of Omaha headquarters.
Another Viewpoint
By Ricky Fulton
Last Friday, Jan. 28 came the latest announcement concerning the ongoing conversations surrounding Omaha's libraries. Now comes a proposed "100 million dollar" library presented by the philanthropists at some entity called "Heritage Services.”
They set up a website where the public can give their opinion on what they want in a library. I shook my head when I saw that because time and time again the public has weighed in on the fate of Omaha's libraries.
The overwhelming inclination of the citizens was to retain the Downtown Dale Clark Library, and renovate it as so needed.
We attended library board and Omaha City Council meetings. We wrote letters, we sent emails to Mayor Stothert opposing the plans to tear down Dale Clark. At every turn the citizens were rebuffed. It may be the philanthropists and big shots will get their way and build an expensive library at 72nd and Dodge Streets. If they do, whose library will it be?
I am not sure whose library this one will be but I know whose library it WON’T be: it won't be the public’s library.