Phila. library's president resigns

It wasn't pretty when Elliot L. Shelkrot came to town in 1987.

The walls were crumbling at the Lehigh Branch of the Free Library. You couldn't even get into most branch libraries on Saturdays: no staff.

During hard rains, patrons at more than one branch were warned: Watch that drip! Roofs leaked.

City funding was draining away.

"My wife said: 'So, why are we doing this?' " Shelkrot recalled the other day, with a laugh somewhere between wistful and wry.

"The biggest thing was to turn around the morale of the staff, and I might say even of the board" of library trustees, he continued. "To say: 'There are things we can do. Let's get on with thinking about things we can do rather than woe is me, how bad things are.' "

Shelkrot has since weathered the city's fiscal meltdown and several annual budget crises - and has quietly stabilized library operations, in the eyes of many.

And now he has decided to step down as president and director of the Free Library, one of the 10 largest public-library systems in the country, with 49 branches, three regional libraries, a library for the blind, and the huge Central Library on Logan Circle.

Shelkrot said his decision was prompted by the simple fact that he has been at the helm for 20 years. He has no immediate plans past his library tenure.

"I think it's time for somebody else," he said during an interview in his office on the first floor of the Central Branch.

"I think it's good for an organization to have a change in leadership. . . . I think it's time for somebody else who can bring fresh eyes, a more youthful, if you will, vigor."

The library's board of trustees, chaired by W. Wilson Goode Sr., mayor when Shelkrot arrived 20 years ago, will put together a search committee to find a successor. And Shelkrot, who is scheduled to appear before City Council today to discuss the library budget, has agreed to stay on until the end of the year.

Goode, who has weathered more than a few budget crunches himself, said he believes Shelkrot was "the right leader at the right time" for the library.

"Number one, he is just a superb librarian, and has the ability to interact with people at all levels," Goode said. "He is able to tell the library story in a way that makes people want to support it. That's key."

Shelkrot, 63, is a slight, white-mustachioed man with a dry sense of humor and a penchant for ties bearing images of books. His modest demeanor masks a shrewd political sense, associates say.

With degrees from Oberlin and the University of Pittsburgh, he had as his first job young-adult librarian at Philadelphia's Columbia Avenue branch. He then headed to Maryland to the state library system and the Baltimore County Library before returning to Pennsylvania as state librarian in 1980.

But it was, perhaps, his experience at the Columbia (now Cecil B. Moore) branch, where he established programs for disadvantaged youngsters, that gave him the essential insight to tackle the job of running the entire rickety Philadelphia system.

Shelkrot knew in his bookish bones that branch libraries were critical for the health of their neighborhoods.

"How can you say there are too many libraries?" he asked. (In the midst of the city's budget crisis, many called for a reduction in the number of branches.) "Libraries in poor neighborhoods are very local. And what I mean by that is that people aren't driving their cars to get there. They walk in. There are kids there. Often the library is one of the very few positive things in the community.

"Now granted, schools are positive. But oftentimes people feel intimidated by the schools, or the kids have been in school all day and the library has a much more free, open kind of feeling. The learning that takes place there is much more self-motivated. You're there because you want to be. There's something you want to look up. There's something you're interested in."

Like virtually every other city agency, the Free Library was hit hard by the city's fiscal woes of the late 1980s and the early '90s. Mayor Rendell's early budgets were not kind or sentimental. The city was on the line, in his view.

Severe contraction led Shelkrot and his colleagues to turn seriously to the Free Library Foundation as an independent fund-raising vehicle. That decision, plus an improved city budget climate, led to a revived library system.

With city capital funds augmented by money raised privately by the library foundation, Shelkrot moved to renovate and refurbish every branch library in the system. Rendell committed $25 million over five years, and the library foundation raised an additional $40 million for the project, Shelkrot said.

"He wisely decided to renovate the branches," Goode said. "I thought that was a superb political insight."

Amy Dougherty, director of the Friends of the Free Library, an independent group representing neighborhood library organizations, called Shelkrot "steadfast in his assertion that library services should be free and open to everyone in the city."

The branch renovation, she said, was "good politics."

"It's also what he believes, and that's what you want," she said. "We're incredibly lucky to have Elliot."

Right now, for the first time in recent memory, all branches in the system are open Saturdays - a marked improvement from the woeful situation 20 years ago.

The library has also embarked on a massive capital campaign to expand and renovate its flagship 1927 Beaux Arts building on Logan Circle. That project, announced in 2003, has faced fund-raising and cost-inflation problems. But just last week, Linda Johnson, chief executive of the Library Foundation, announced an anonymous $15 million challenge grant.

If matched dollar for dollar, as required, the grant would put the campaign over the $100 million mark. The total project - which envisions, among other things, a 160,000-square-foot expansion, designed by Moshe Safdie, extending from the rear of the building - is now expected to cost about $175 million.

Shelkrot, whose annual salary is $123,656, had been in charge of the library as well as the capital campaign, but in discussions with the board, everyone agreed it was difficult, if not impossible, to do both. About six months ago, he relinquished the campaign to Johnson.

"Raising the kind of money that the library needs to raise is a project, and it needs somebody who can spend their full time on it and not also run the library," he said. "She's very strong. She's worked with the library for a long time in a variety of other capacities, and she has been able to ratchet up significantly our fund-raising effort."

As a result, Shelkrot has been able to focus his attention on library operations. He has managed to bring staffing at the branches back up to the levels they were at before the last budget squeeze and the city's 2004-2005 hiring freeze.

In Philadelphia, there are now 725 staffers throughout the Free Library system; the budget for fiscal 2008 authorizes 729.

With an operating budget from the city and state of about $55 million, plus some additional monies raised by the foundation, Shelkrot has also managed to meet rising library usage across the city.

"Library use is up across the country," Daugherty of the library friends said. "Library budgets are down. Philadelphia is not unique."

But for Shelkrot, that's just another opportunity.

"We are always looking for more people: Any library has an incredible cross-section of people, economically, and every other way," he said. "The challenge is how you get the attention of the people who have the dollars to share. Relative to some other institutions, we're still neophytes at fund-raising. . . .

"But the library, that institution that is free for people to get ideas, information and even inspiration, I believe - and I'm not the first person to say it - is fundamental to a democratic way of life.

"People need information; they need to get it free."

Number of items (books, CDs, periodicals etc.): 10 million

Number of books: 4 million

Number of public computers: 851

Number of visits annually: More than 6 million

Annual operating budget: $53.7 million from city and state; $15 million from Free Library Foundation

Busiest branch: Independence, 18 S. 7th St.

Oldest branch: Central, started in three rooms in City Hall in 1894, moved to a number of locations before settling on Vine Street; Roxborough also opened in 1894 but also moved. The oldest branch to remain in the same location is Chestnut Hill, which opened in 1897.

Newest branch: Independence, opened 2001

SOURCE: Philadelphia Free LibraryEndText

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