The renovated Central branch of the Multnomah County Library serves a range of needs

It’s been three months since the main branch of the Multnomah County Library reopened after being closed for nearly a year for renovations. The improvements include new and updated meeting rooms, a new designated teen space, new gender-inclusive and family restrooms, device charging and internet improvements, and a variety of safety changes like lowered shelves, new fire alarms and air quality monitoring equipment.

Shelly Jarman, the regional manager of the Central branch, says library staffers are well equipped to help all the community members who come into the library, from unhoused Portlanders who need social services to school kids researching papers and others looking for specific books or periodicals. For many of the people who work in the building, the purpose of the library is to help people, which varies from person to person and day to day. Jarman and library PIO Shawn Cunningham join us to tell us more about how the last few months have gone and what they’re hearing from patrons.

This transcript was created by a computer and edited by a volunteer.

Dave Miller: From the Gert Boyle Studio at OPB, this is Think Out Loud. I’m Dave Miller. It’s been about three months since the Central branch of the Multnomah County Library reopened. It was closed for renovations for nearly a year. The improvements include new and updated meeting rooms, a designated teen space, gender-inclusive and family restrooms and a variety of safety changes. The library reopened not long after a county audit put safety questions in stark relief. 43% of countywide library staff who interact with the public disagreed with the statement, “I feel safe at work.” Shelly Jarman is a central regional manager for the library system. Shawn Cunningham is a spokesperson for the libraries. They both join us now. It’s great to have both of you on the show.

Shelly Jarman: Thank you. Hello.

Shawn Cunningham: Thanks, Dave.

Miller: Shelly, first, I gave a one-sentence version of some of the changes at the library. For folks who haven’t been back yet in the last three months, can you describe the renovation work?

Jarman: Yes, I think what you’ll notice first is just how bright it is. Lowering shelves and just changing up the space really opened it up, so that even on the grayest days, it’s super bright in there with new paint, new carpeting and comfortable new furniture. The space itself, I think there’s some changes that you may get a little bit disoriented as you walk in. We have a Friends of the Library store and that moved slightly. We also added an office as you come in for our social workers to meet with people, so that’s one of the first things you see. A new large meeting room, some new small meeting rooms, just lots of different spaces that you can discover a good place to sit down or browse or do whatever you want to do while you’re there.

Miller: How well did the temporary pop-up library world work for the time when the actual building was closed?

Jarman: I think it worked very well for what we wanted it to do. We knew that closing down was really going to impact people’s ability to access the internet, to charge, just to have a space to, especially during the summer, get out of the heat. And we were packed every day. So the problem was that it’s a small space. There’s nothing that could compare to the size that we have for the Central Library. But looking at what we were able to get, and very close to where the Central library is, it was really successful.

Miller: What have you heard so far since you reopened and the public can come back to the building?

Jarman: Oh, people have been thrilled to come back. So, just immediate excitement to be back in the space, but also to see that some of the things that people have been asking about are incorporated in there. I mentioned new furniture – some of the chairs we had in the past, I don’t know how long it’s been since you’ve been there, but hard wooden chairs. We still have some of those wooden chairs, but we also have some cushier chairs. We have chairs with arms for accessibility and for comfort. And the way that we have arranged so that there’s different spaces, that you can either sit with friends or people you know, you can sit at a table to work, you can find your own space that’s quiet and personal. People have been really excited just to come in and choose what they want.

Definitely have heard some feedback. Some people don’t like the colors of the paint, some people maybe not [like] the carpet, but [it’s] very personal in that way. We’re still making some adjustments to the way that the collection is laid out based on what we’re hearing. We’ve heard about accessibility. Folks have really appreciated our service desks are more accessible now, too, for a mobility device and our seating as well.

Miller: Do you find that people are using the library in different ways than they did before?

Jarman: I don’t think so, I think people have always come to the library for a space where they can be and where they know that they can get help they trust. The questions that people ask have probably varied over the years, what type of information they’re looking for, but the library has just been a trusted resource for as long as folks can remember. And that’s continues.

Miller: Shawn Cunningham, one of the most unique aspects of libraries, at a time when there are fewer and fewer public spaces, is that it’s a place that can be accessed by a huge variety of populations – families coming for books or story time, or people coming for meetings, or looking for employment, or looking for specific research help or periodicals. Also, people experiencing homelessness who have nowhere else to go. What are the specific challenges that arise from the diversity of the populations who all want something out of the same space?

Cunningham: It is a challenge to truly create a space that is for everyone. The public library is among the most open public spaces that we share and utilize, aside from a street corner or a public park, perhaps. And the range of needs that people bring to that space can be really vast. It might be a very complicated research project, or it might be looking for a marriage certificate, or it could be someone just wanting to get out of the rain for the day. And for a public library, those are all equally legitimate uses.

Our library system is navigating a huge amount of change right now. The library buildings, as we know them, really haven’t fundamentally changed in several decades. The last time we invested in really changing those spaces was about the same time our community was daydreaming about building a MAX line to the airport or poking around this thing called Google. If you think about the amount of change in the way that we access information and how we navigate our day-to-day lives in that amount of time, it’s vastly different.

So in the changes that Shelley was describing, we’re trying to create different ways to use a fixed amount of space. And in addition to the changes at Central Library, we’ll have new libraries opening up very soon that will really reflect a lot of different purposes, a lot of different audiences and a lot of different uses. But it’s always about trying to strike a very fine balance and that’s a fluid goal sometimes.

Miller: Shelly, according to an online recording system – and this is more information that came from that audit at the end of last year – patrons violated library rules more than 2,000 times in 2022 and more than half of those infractions were at your library, at the Central branch. What kinds of rules are broken? What infractions are most common?

Jarman: Sleeping. I think when you look at that sheer number, because every warning we give, every exclusion we give, we document it all. So that’s where that’s pulled from. But we are looking at … we wake up people to make sure they’re OK. We have a rule against sleeping and we check in just to make sure that they don’t need any medical assistance, basically.

Miller: Just to be really clear about this, is part of the question, is this person sleeping or have they overdosed? I mean, is that one of the things that you’re getting at in 2024?

Jarman: Sure, you absolutely want to consider that, but there’s many medical issues that could impact someone’s condition. We’re just checking in, “How are you doing, are you OK?” Overdose could be one of those things and it is something that we encounter from time to time.

Other rule violations are also generally somewhat mild. They do range. [There are] 10 rules and it can just be a disturbance, like you’re getting a little bit loud and you’re bothering other people, and it can be more impactful for that and more escalated as well. But when you look at what the majority is, you’re looking at low-level, we’re checking in or giving warnings, and they’re usually just day exclusions, not so long.

Miller: You mean, “Hey, you’ve broken this rule and now we’re going to have to ask you to leave.” And who is saying that? Who is responsible for that and what happens if the person doesn’t want to leave?

Jarman: We have a team of people who work in different roles to help with safety at the library. So the person who’s actually saying, “This isn’t working out today, gonna ask you to leave, you can try again tomorrow” – that’s going to be someone in a role we call “person in charge” and that’s something that all of the managers in the building do. That’s myself and then the administrators.

And we have a role that’s called “safety coordinator.” There’s three of them and they help us, they lead us, they model this work for us. They’re experts in de-escalation and trauma-informed service. So they help us to truly work with people in a way that works well. We also have union-represented staff who opt in, they choose to take this role on. And there’s about 10 to 15 at Central right now who have opted in to take this role. Every hour, there’s two people acting as “person in charge,” we’re walking around, we’re checking in with folks, having these conversations and also letting people know about our expectations.

We also have security. We work with contracted security with the county. We have three officers every open hour that are also moving around throughout the floors and outside and collaborating with the person in charge.

Miller: What are you looking for when you’re the person in charge and it’s your turn to be walking around? What are you keeping an eye out for?

Jarman: I think that you can see when something is disturbing others. So looking towards whether there’s behavior that is impacting the environment, impacting the room. One of the nice things about being in this role is you really get to know the folks that are in the building. We have a lot of regular patrons. So you’re looking for things that are outside their normal range of behavior.

You may know that someone acts a certain way in general and they’re acting slightly differently. Maybe something’s going on that day that you want to check in with them and try to get ahead of things before anything escalates. You’re just trying to check in to make sure people can stay. We want everybody to be able to successfully use the library, but there’s a whole lot of us in there. And we want to make sure that everybody in there is staying safe.

Miller: How much of the work that you’re doing, that you’re describing, did you imagine would be a part of a life of library work when you started?

Jarman: I didn’t know what to expect when I started, to be honest. I came from the service industry. I was working in bars and restaurants, and I just loved the idea of being part of this world of books, being part of a space that gave things so freely and that people trusted. So I didn’t know exactly where my role would take me. And I think this wasn’t that surprising for me because it circles back to some of my origins.

Miller: The county chair, Jessica Vega Pederson, has pointed out that security costs for the library system as a whole have gone up 70% since 2019. Where is that money going within the library?

Cunningham: Well, a lot of it is supporting the kinds of positions that Shelly described. Security is a lot more than placing a person in a uniform at a certain position in a building. It’s really, I would say, an ecosystem of supporting a philosophy that is intended to allow people to use Central Library and to create a welcoming space for everyone, and for every library that is true as well.

So there are a range of costs associated with security. But we put a lot of time and effort into trying to be proactive and supporting training, change management and other kinds of upstream philosophies that help to the extent, if possible, our security responses to not always be reflexive or after a thing happens. There is, as you note, a significant increase in the library’s security expenditures over the past five or so years, but it’s a trend that didn’t start then. And the library is working really hard to look for ways to not just add more of what’s already there but to look for other approaches that other libraries might be using or other organizations.

One good example is the concept of “peer navigators” that’s been a strategy that’s been employed at other library systems like Denver or San Francisco. We have a budget proposal under consideration right now that would add a number of peer navigators to the libraries already existing set of positions and duties through the support of housing services funding. So that’s another example, but we’re going to keep looking for ways to be flexible, creative and strategic as we try to address this range of issues.

Miller: Shelly, you mentioned that one of the changes with the renovated Central Library is that there’s now an office close to the entrance for a social worker. What services are provided there? I mean, what is a social worker at the library doing?

Jarman: We have a couple of people in that role and we’re looking to expand slightly in the next couple of months, so we’ll have at least one every day. They’re checking in with folks that generally are self-selecting or being referred to them for support. And some of that is medical resources, mental health, certainly community resources.

I use the term social worker because people know what that means, and that’s their actual title. But their self-named role is “community resource counselor” because they’re connecting people to things that aren’t necessarily available in the library but are within the community. So, meals, shelter, clothing, all sorts of supplies just to live life.

Miller: Shawn, you had said early on in this conversation, after I’d given a litany of potential users of a library, that all of these uses are just as legitimate as the other. Do you ever hear from library users who go in with their kids or to get a book, that they actually don’t agree with you, that they think somebody who is just sort of camping out there with all of their bags and clearly has no other place to be, that they don’t see that as a legitimate use of the library? I’m curious if and how often you actually hear that from library users?

Cunningham: Sure. Well, it’s something that comes up. People tend to have very strong opinions about the public library and what they think it should be and how it should offer its services. Folks like Shelly and her colleagues are always working to balance the resources available and the set of conditions that are present in order to accommodate those different uses.

So if someone has a concern with something that’s happening that day, we’ll try to find another space for the party or provide other suggestions or resources. But as a public library, it exists as a place and as a set of resources for people to access. And it wouldn’t make sense for the library as an organization to assign priority or legitimacy to any of those individual uses because that’s not in keeping with the intent of the public library.

We do take concerns seriously if people feel unsafe, if they feel an unwelcoming aspect to their library visit. Certainly, we want to address those things very quickly and we work hard to do that. But I found that people have a lot of very strong opinions about what they think their library should look like and how it should function, and people don’t always agree on those things.

Miller: Shawn Cunningham and Shelly Jarman, thanks very much.

Jarman: Thank you.

Cunningham: Thank you, Dave.

Miller: Shawn Cunningham is one of the spokespeople for Multnomah County Library. Shelly Jarman is the central regional manager for the system.

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