Plywood covers half of the front doors to the Eudora Welty Library in downtown Jackson.
A piece of paper taped to the door reads: The library is closed today due to delayed air conditioning repairs. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Once the system’s flagship library, the Eudora Welty Library at 300 N. State St. has been closed for more than 70 days due to air conditioning problems. The city of Jackson, which is responsible for repairs, has no plan in place to ensure repairs are made.
“The air’s blowing but not cooling,” said Floyd Council, executive director of the Jackson-Hinds Library System. “The average temperature inside the library has been between 82 and 90 degrees.”
Jane Clover Alexander, a longtime Jackson resident and president and CEO of the Community Foundation for Mississippi, considers the state of the Welty Library par for the course.
“It’s not surprising to me, I’m sad to say,” she said. “There are lot of city buildings in the same boat, some of that is due to supply chain issues. Just like anybody else, if you’re trying to get something fixed, you’re in a long line.”
Half of the libraries in the state need repairs, most often roof repairs, said Hulen Bivins, executive director of the Mississippi Library Commission. Mississippi has 56 library systems and most have multiple branches.
“The majority of our buildings were constructed in the 1960s when there were federal dollars made available under a grant,” he said. “At that time, flat roofs were prevalent on commercial buildings because you could put the air conditioning unit there.”
The Welty Library, once a former Sears & Roebuck that was renovated and opened as a library in 1986, suffers from roof leaks and mold that resulted from the leaks. The second floor is closed to library patrons, and sections of the first floor at the Welty Library are roped off.
The Richard Wright Library, located on McDowell Road in south Jackson and part of the Jackson-Hinds Library System, has a flat roof plagued by drainage issues, which have resulted in the roof collapsing on the children’s area, Council said. The building also needs a new HVAC system and two 12-foot windows that vandals damaged are boarded up and need to be replaced.
Council, who knows the story of how books were left in the defunct Tisdale Library after it flooded and are now unusable, has had best sellers in the Richard Wright Library moved to other branches. Duplicates of books that are in the system’s other libraries remain in the Richard Wright Library, he said, noting that the interior is regularly assessed so that the remaining books aren’t allowed to grow mold.
Why doesn’t the Jackson-Hinds Library System take matters into its own hands and repair to its buildings?
Under Mississippi law, a county or municipality must fund the purchase of land and construction of a building for a public library and equip and maintain it.
“The state didn’t want to hand out monies to someone or someone in a group that hadn’t made a full commitment” Bivins said. “That way the community had an investment.”
Library systems with the best maintained buildings are located where there’s a strong tax base, he said.
The city of Jackson’s budget includes just $300,000 to fund maintenance and repairs for all the city-owned buildings, said Ashby Foote, president of the Jackson City Council who represents ward 1.
When the air conditioning at the Mississippi Arts Center, another city-owned building, went out, it took a year for the city to replace it. The arts organizations that have offices there for free found other places to work. City officials said supply chain issues made it tough to obtain the needed HVAC equipment.
Members of the Jackson-Hinds Library System Board of Trustees have met with individual council members about the repairs that are needed, Council said.
“The mayor has expressed support for the library,” he said. “I think they’ve been committed to other priorities in the city. They do want to work to find a solution. It is a process. We’re waiting for the next wave of conversation.”
There’s been no discussion in recent months about Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba’s idea to buy the former Batte Furniture building at 1010 E. Northside Drive and renovate it into a library since he announced it in 2021.
“It is not clear to us about where that discussion at the Batte Furniture building is,” Council said.
In August, Council plans to pay close attention to the city’s budgeting process as well as that for Hinds County. The Jackson-Hinds Library System, which operates with a $4 million budget, has 60 employees and 14 libraries, two of which are closed.
About half of the Jackson-Hinds Library System’s budget goes for salaries and the rest for expenses from professional services to security to utilities, Council said.
The Mississippi Library Commission, which has about a $12 million budget, pays the cost of medical insurance for Mississippi library System librarians in the state, Bivins said. The commission also provides services such as technicians who can help set up computer networks, librarians that can assist with programming and grants and MAGNOLIA, a free database of resource materials.
“Twenty percent of what we receive from the state stays here in the agency and that’s for salary costs,” Bivins said. “The other 80 percent supports libraries.”
To receive financial assistance from the commission, an annual audit is required. The 2020-2021 has been delayed, Council, said because financial records from the Jackson Friends of the Library, which is listed as “paused” on the Jackson-Hinds Library System website, have been difficult to obtain.
Elta Johnston, president of the Friends, said there was a lack of communication with the Friends and the auditor has received the needed financial information from the Friends.
The audit is expected to be complete in August, Council said.
In the last six months, some vacancies on the Jackson-Hinds Library System Board of Trustees have been filled.
Peyton Smith, a Belhaven resident and attorney, realized the trustee position for Ward 7 was vacant and stepped up to fill it. Paul Forster, a Northeast Jackson resident who works as the city of Flowood engineer, volunteered to fill the Ward 1 position on the board. The council confirmed the mayor’s appointments.
Vacant positions still remain on the board, including those for Ward 2, Ward 4 and Ward 6 as well as the Hinds County at-large seat. The Hinds County Supervisors is responsible for the at-large seat.
Council, whose career has landed him at library systems across the country including Dallas, Nashville, Washington, D.C., Atlanta and Birmingham, hopes to hire a director of marketing and communications for the system and plans to strengthen collaborations with community partners. The Jackson-Hinds Library System will be present at the Mississippi Book Festival on Aug. 20.
“Nobody’s thinking bigger,” he said.
Council would like to increase STEM programs for children and obtain a van that librarians could use for outreach in rural areas of Hinds County. He also dreams of providing books by mail for shut-ins and books in a bag for book clubs so they could rely on the library to provide reading material.
Digital resources can’t be overlooked, he said. Nationwide, libraries have seen a 21 percent decrease in visit nationwide since COVID-19 while digital resources skyrocketed, he said.
“I’d rather have a smaller space that isn’t 25 percent the size of Welty (Library), but it could simply connect people to digital resources,” Council said.
Council plans to conduct surveys to gather data about how people use the libraries and which surveys are the most popular and come up with a strategic plan to move the system forward.
Alexander, who has fond memories of writing term papers in a study carrel at the former downtown library and checking out books at the Northside Library (renamed the Tisdale Library) and the Welty Library, believes the city’s libraries have been treated as an afterthought in recent years and she would like that to change.
She is all for a “deep community conversation” about the city’s libraries and the community needs they could fill and how that could be accomplished.
“What if we could create a library?” she asked.
