1869-1994 A Celebration of the Cleveland Public Library by James M. Wood ONE HUNDRED AND TwENTY-FIVE 1869-1994 A Celebration of the Cleveland Public Library by James M. Wood CLEVELAND PUBLICLIBRARY I2- 1869-1994 y ~ This is the second published account of the Cleveland Public Library. The first, Open Shelves and Open Minds, was a centennial history written by the late C. H. "Red" Cramer, a professor of history at Case Western Reserve University. This book takes up where Professor Cramer's left off, and in that sense the two books are companion pieces. But this book was conceived as a stand-alone project. While the narrative covers roughly the last twenty-five years, the story of the first hundred years is told through historic photographs and their captions. The Cleveland Public Library gratefully acknowledges the people, inside and outside the Library, who participated in the making of this book. They are Fran Clark, Ann Olszewski, and Helen Azusenis of the Library staff, Rory O'Connor of Whelan Communications Inc. , Cleveland, Don Borger of Design Associates, Cleveland, and, of course, the author. Also by james M. Wood Halle's: Memoirs of a Family Department Store Photographs: The Cleveland Public Library Archives Copyright © 1994 by the Friends of Cleveland Public Library. All rights reserved. Artist's renderiug of tile Cleveland Public Library's new Ea$L Wing. PART 1: HOSTAGES PART 1 Hostages A NICE COLD RAIN had subdued low normal-and the chilling rain many Clevelanders on their way to had blackened the bare branches of work Wednesday morning, Novem­ the flowering crab and gum trees in ber 8, 1990, but not Marilyn Gell the Eastman Reading Garden four Mason, director ofThe Cleveland Pub­ floors below her office windows. News lic Library for the last four years. The reports from Baghdad that same morn­ temperature was 40-ten degrees be- ing further nurtured pessimists. Iraq's president, Saddam Hussein, had said he might release a few of the hundreds of foreign nationals, many of them Americans, he was holding as "human shields" against possible bombing raids, a rumored retaliation for his August invasion of Kuwait. But Mrs. Mason, born Marilyn Killebrew on August 23, 1944, in Chickasha, Oklahoma, was neither subdued by the weather, nor pessi­ mistic about the Middle East. In fact, the director sensed a unique opportu­ nity to make something extraordinary In 1986 Marilyn Gel! Mason spoke to the City Club of Cleveland, happen for the library. outlining her plans to increase public access to the Library's The director already had a na­ collection through the use of new electronic technologies. tional reputation for making things 1 ONE HU DRED AND TWE TY-FIVE happen. When her predecessor, the urban public library systems over the late Ervin ] . Gaines, had retired in distribution of intangible tax collec­ 1986, she told Library trustees search­ tions. The trustees and the director ing for his replacement, "I'm not good had replaced income lost in the settle­ at the status quo. I'm interested in ment and other statewide funding building, reaching new heights." cutbacks by successfully passing a Her self-analysis had proved two-mill general property tax levy in accurate. August, 1988. ln four short years, the trustees As she was stabilizing and increas­ and Mrs. Mason had settled several ing the Library's resources, she also lawsuits, legacies of a decades-long was enhancing the Library's national dispute with the Cuyahoga County leadership in three critical areas: col­ Public Library and independent sub- lection, branches, and computer tech- .\"'"•'·11'11 {l>f:tltll\llr •'r {I>CI rl:uul t1nlali. ~I~ a., :I I'll. ~~ ------------\n •1;. --- liT I .• •I .,.f. ~!lt.J/iw //lj /, II. t,, / , j''/!,.<. //.( r /./N ;ul /"'' It u t 'C.rltl(~l/· ;1/,0t'Nit' ?IJrona-1 -.?rt/'1.~~j; ([/;nm/<,., 1'/.dnl'/( /t,!;{;wn £.~'//,? / JhN/m /'/f: " /£n ~~~'~f''"H/f"kJUI/t/4.,/t ,,; w/a/u, .4 /h_ ('//omm flt•//,r ~-/-,(,. ¥-.) February 17, 1869 In a single room on the third noor of a small brick building on West Superior Avenue, less than a block from Public Square, Luther Melville Oviatt opened a "Public School Library" for the Cleveland Board of Education. The collection totaled 5,800 books. Circulation was limited to a single volume per fam ily: "No renewals." Yet the books were circulating at all times. Hours were from 10 a.m. to noon, 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. on all "secular" days of the year. There was no catalog. Books were numbered and shelved in order of their accession. An "Accessions Book" from the 1870s still exists in the Cleveland Public Library's archive. A random entry shows the beginning of an eclectic collection. 2 PART 1: HOSTAGES seven days a week. As a trustee of the Online Computer Library Center since 1984, Mrs. Mason knew the impor­ tance of computer technology to the futute of libraries. In Cleveland, she had not only opened a gateway to an electronic highway, she continued to widen the road almost monthly by providing free access to new elec­ tronic databases unavailable anywhere else in the country. Eighteen library systems subscribed to CLEVNET, the In April, 1991, Library trustees announced the purchase of Villa common catalog listing 1.6 million Angela Academy, a former girls school on Lake Erie. Plans called titles covering 5.6 million items, plus for the building's renovation to create a badly-needed branch for a periodicals list from 60 public, busi­ the Lake Shore neighborhood, as well as to relieve overcrowding ness, university and medical libraries at the Main Library. At a press conference at the wooded site, in a five-county area. Mrs. Mason was joined at the speakers podium by then-Library The public enthusiastically re­ board President Thomas D. Corrigan (center) and Ohio Governor sponded to the improvements in ser­ George V. Voinovich. vice. According to the Library's 1990 Annual Report, since 1988, books nology. She opened the Main Library borrowed for home use had increased on Sundays and extended service 3 7 percent, reference questions had hours in 30 branches. She introduced increased 15 percent, books loaned broad use of videocassettes and soft­ to other libraries had increased 75 ware packages to the collection, and percent, walk-in use at Main Library conducted summer reading programs was up 31 percent, and branch usage for children, which broke attendance was up 2 7 percent. records. The Library had cataloged 51 ,884 The director had made the Library new titles, the highest number ever, more accessible to all its patrons. Hers up 12 percent from the year before. was the first large urban library in the Full-time employees numbered only United States to offer dial-up access to 462, down more than 200 from the its online catalog 24 hours a day, 1970s. More than half the staff mem- 3 O N E H U NDR E D AN D TWE N TY-FIVE june, 1875 In the Case Block at East Third Street and Superior Avenue (the site of the present Main Library), the Library's second head librarian, Irad Beardsley, opened the first newspaper room. He subscribed to 30 dailies and 26 weeklies in English. Foreign newspapers included three in German and two in Bohemian. Foreign language books and periodicals, reflecting Cleveland's diverse ethnic residents, would become a special strength of the new Library. A photograph taken prior to 1900 shows a later newspaper room at the Old Central High School on Euclid Avenue just west of East Ninth Street, where the Library moved in 1879. bers were minorities and annual tum­ solving the problems created by the overwas only 2. 4 percent. The record­ cramped and deteriorating landmark breaking statistics came at time when Main Library and its Business and the City of Cleveland population con­ Science Annex on Superior Avenue in tinued to decline. downtown Cleveland. The millions of Yet two crucial issues still nagged items in the Library's world-renowned at the ambitious director. research collection were themselves One was finding a site for a new held hostage on overcrowded stacks Lake Shore branch on the northeast by leaky roofs, bursting water pipes, edge of Cleveland. and dangerously antiquated electrical The other was far more critical: systems. 4 PA R T 1 : H OS T AGES From her office window in the Cleveland Public Library's long and Main Library, Mrs. Mason could see remarkable historical development, a the glistening tar-coated roof on the fitting commemoration of the Library's Business and Science Annex, the l25th anniversary in 1994. source of numerous leaks that had forced the staff to cover rows and OF THE 11 men and women who rows of shelves with plastic tarps­ have directed the 125-year-old Li­ part of a temporary "disaster manage­ brary, Mrs. Mason is one of the most ment" plan to prevent damage to the politically experienced. She was Library's irreplaceable holdings. graduated from the john F. Kennedy But on that bleak morning, Mrs. School for Government at Harvard Mason was more interested in analyz­ University in 1978 with a masters ing the results of the Ohio governor's degree in public administration. She race than contemplating the cost of managed library programs for the roof repairs. November 8, 1990, was Metropolitan Washington Council the day after a state-wide election. of Governments from 1973 to 1977, Her political instincts told her to place and directed the White House Con­ a call to the state's new governor­ ference on Libraries and Information elect, and former mayor of Cleveland, Services from 1979 to 1980.