Named for one of Jackson’s most celebrated writers, the Eudora Welty Library in Jackson opened as a showplace in 1986.
Thirty-six years later, the Welty Library is in such disrepair that patrons must rely upon an employee to retrieve a book from the stacks on the second floor rather than get it themselves. The Welty Library ranks third in circulation among the system’s branches and the number of employees is about half of what it once was.
The city purchased the former Sears building at 300 N. State St. for use as the downtown library at a cost of $878,056 in 1977.
The Jackson Friends of the Library campaigned for the purchase of the Sears building and worked to ensure a $2.7 million bond issue passed in 1982 that provided funds to renovate the building. The organization, led by activists Janet Clark, Pat Ross and the late Betty Jolly, also conducted a petition drive to have the library named in honor of Welty and later sponsored an opening gala.
Clark, who served as vice chair of the Friends of the Library, wrote in the Feb. 6, 1986 issue of The Northside Sun about the attention the naming of the library to honor the Jackson resident drew.
“Miss Welty was interrupted during a speech at Agnes Scott College with the news that Jackson’s newest library had been named in her honor. The audience cheered, but no more loudly than the folks at home who had gathered in the council chambers for the vote...
“The naming of the library was carried nationwide by Associated Press and from New Orleans a longtime friend called Miss Welty to say how proud the news would have made Mrs. Parker, the librarian when Eudora was a child. ‘The only thing that Mrs. Parker would think more fitting would be if she could have had the library named for herself!”’
Celebrated with the new library were details such as the 42-foot-long circulation desk created by craftsman Fletcher Cox featuring bands of African rosewood and curly maple and the more than 60,000 square feet of space with the first floor that housed study and reading areas, reference sections, adult fiction stacks, a magazine room, a wing for the children’s collection and a large meeting room and a second floor that contained record, videocassette and adult non-fiction collections, reading and study areas as well as staff offices.
A Feb. 9, 1986 story in The Clarion Ledger declared: “The opening of the Eudora Welty Library initiates a new era in library services for Jackson and symbolizes the city’s commitment to library improvements.
“Renovated as an art deco showplace at a cost of $2.9 million, the building will serve as an information center and a community gathering place. Because of the care lavished on its preparation, the building will be a pleasure to visit and to use, a visible celebration of the joy, necessity, and power of a library.”
A visit now makes one wonder: What happened? With the internet and a computer is a brick-and-mortar building even necessary for a library system to offer services?
A hailstorm years ago and a faulty repair of the roof led to water leaks and black mold at the Welty Library. The problem forced the closure of the administrative offices on the second floor of the library in 2017 and remain a problem throughout the facility.
“It’s frustrating,” said Kimberly Corbett, interim director of the Jackson-Hinds Library System, which relies on the city of Jackson to maintain Welty Library.
Corbett said she has sent numerous emails and made many phone calls to city officials to report the leaks and black mold but to no avail.
“We get some complaints about the problems,” she said. “A lot of people come in and are so used to it that they don’t say anything, but some people do complain.”
In 2018, the continued growth of mold forced the system to move its information technology department to the Quisenberry Library in Clinton. The administration is now housed there, too.
In October 2018, State Fire Marshal Mike Chaney temporarily closed the facility after numerous violations were found there.
Ashby Foote, who represents Ward 1 on the Jackson City Council, contends the city owns too many buildings and doesn’t have the resources to maintain them, naming the Welty Library along with the defunct Tisdale Library and the closed Richard Wright Library in south Jackson.
“It’s outrageous for us to have a library in disrepair within a shadow of the Old Capitol Museum, close to the High Street gateway for the city and across from the $90 million Two Mississippi Museums,” he said.
He believes the library serves as need for residents without personal libraries, provides computers and internet access for those without and a meeting place for organizations, but wonders if the city should sell the building that houses the Welby Library and find another location for it. It’s not a new idea.
Months after Welty Library was temporarily closed by the state fire marshal, city officials announced in the summer of 2018 that they were willing to sell the Welty Library and Hinds County leaders indicated they wanted it.
Jackson city leaders said at the time they would sell the building to the county but wanted to make sure any deal made would help finance the construction of a new “21st Century” library.
“Our main objective is to deliver a downtown library that is consistent with 21st Century libraries,” said Robert Blaine, who then served as chief administrative officer for the city. He is now employed by the National League of Cities as senior executive and director of its Institute for Youth, Education and Families.
On June 20, 2018, Mike Morgan, who was then president of the Hinds County Board of Supervisors, sent a letter to the mayor and city council asking for first right of refusal on the facility, which houses Hinds County Emergency Operations Center and the county’s emergency dispatch in the basement.
Blaine said in 2018 the city was in the beginning phases to determine if the building could be sold.
“We are bringing in someone to evaluate the structure to make sure our assessment that it has reached (the end) of its useful life is accurate,” Blaine said.
Blaine said several steps would have to be taken before the building could be sold.
Under state law, the city must determine that the facility has reached the end of its useful life. Blaine said leaders wanted to find a new location to house Welty Library before a sale took place and that the purchase of a new building would be paid for with proceeds from the sale.
Almost four years later, nothing appears to have come of the proposed sale.
“No decision has been reached at this point,” said District One Supervisor Robert Graham.
Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba announced last year that he would like to buy the former Batte Furniture and Interiors building at 1010 E. Northside Drive to use as a library but nothing appears to have happened with that.
Pete Perry, a Jackson resident, has seen for himself the decline of the Welty Library.
Hinds County for many years used the Hinds County Emergency Operations Center meeting room, which is located in the basement of the Welty Library, as the location for poll worker training, but stopped after people who couldn’t take the stairs had to use the freight elevator because the main elevator was not working.
“We had to let the library employees know ahead of time we had someone coming who needed to use the elevator and they would have to operate it,” he said. “They were not real anxious to do that. It was a hassle. We finally said to hell with it.”
Perry blames city of Jackson leadership for the disrepair at Welty Library. “They let that one to go hell, the Tisdale one and the one out there in south Jackson (the Richard Wright branch),” he said.
With the use of technology and a population that has declined, the city doesn’t need as many branches, Perry said, and could adopt a different model.
“Let’s just have two in the city but let’s have two nice ones,” he said. “Let’s fix up the Willie Morris Library and have one in south Jackson. It’s not that much further to drive to the Willie Morris Library.
“If people need computers to use, let’s just set up a big room with a bunch of computers rather than 6,000 books. There are different ways to serve the needs in 2022.”
The Welty library is the system’s third-most used library, Corbett said.
The Quisenberry Library in Clinton is tops in terms of circulation followed by the Willie Morris Library and then the Welty Library, Corbett said.
The Quinsenberry Library had 4,640 items circulated during September 2021 compared to 1,311 items at the Willie Morris Library and 918 items at the Welty Library during the same time period, she said. Those numbers are a typical month during the global COVID-19 pandemic, she said.
The library system’s closure because of the pandemic and COVID-19 have had an impact on circulation numbers, Corbett said.
The Welty Library is in downtown Jackson and that is another explanation for its circulation numbers, she said, as people tend to use libraries near where they live. “It’s not located near a residential area and people tend to go to the library on their personal time,” she said.
Libraries are still useful, Corbett said, because they provide e-books, audio books and print materials and programming. “We’ve offered during the pandemic digital programming that people can watch on our YouTube channel,” she said.
Corbett understands that in a city plagued with an aged water system that needs repairs and infrastructure problems, the libraries don’t top the list of improvements.
“In Maslow’s Hierarchy of Survival, there are basic human needs and books don’t make the list,” she said. “Water comes before books.”
Corbett’s thoughts turn to a water-filled movie, “Finding Nemo,” and the words of Dory, the plucky, forgetful blue fish, who counseled in the face of adversity, to “just keep swimming.”
“You’ve got to keep swimming and move ahead,” she said, admitting she has days at work where those words serve as inspiration. “Just keep swimming.”
