August 28, 2013
For IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Robin Diener
202 431-9254

Library Board President John Hill’s Public Assurances
Contradicted in New Request for Architects for MLK

In response to recent questions about plans for the renovation of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library, John W. Hill, the President of the Library Trustees said, “No decisions have been made. Everything is on the table.”

His comments came on July 27, 2013 at the regular bi-monthly meeting of the Board of Library Trustees, where Hill also noted that the Library is due to issue a report on DC’s central public library by October 1, as requested by the DC Council in the Budget Support Act.

On August 21, however, the Library issued a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) for architects , the terms of which seem to indicate that the option for a fully public building has already been eliminated, “in anticipation of a future public private partnership,” according to “Section 4.0 Services Requested” of the RFQ .

“It concerns us that the RFQ was issued prior to the Council-mandated report and any public discussion of it,” said Robin Diener, Director of the DC Library Renaissance Project. “The RFQ language leads us to believe that the report will focus on private partnerships only for financing, and won’t meaningfully consider public-public options and the financial benefits they might confer.”

For instance, the DC Archives was allocated $42 million for a new facility but has no location as yet. New Orleans and San Francisco house their municipal archives at their central libraries and the city archives of Vancouver, BC will shortly move into the top two floors of Vancouver’s central public library.

RFQ for architects
http://www.dclibrary.org/node/37023

San Francisco City Archives
http://sfpl.org/index.php?pg=0200002601

New Orleans City Archive
http://neworleanspubliclibrary.org/spec/speclist.htm
http://nutrias.org/inv/invlist.htm