Mona Carmack is retiring from her post as County Librarian after serving Johnson County for eighteen years. During that time Mona has opened six new buildings and refurbished four neighborhood libraries to better serve the community. The library’s operating budget has grown from $5 million to $21.6 million, the number of registered library patrons has almost doubled, the collection of library materials has tripled, the percentage of county residents using the library has increased, and total amount of library materials circulated throughout community has sky-rocketed from 1.8 million to more than 6 million annually. To be sure, Mona is leaving some impressive shoes to fill for the next County Librarian, and we asked her to reflect on her time at Johnson County Library and to share her advice for the future.
What was your biggest challenge as County Librarian?MC: Building the Central Resource Library and deciding what this building would be. It’s a long story, but it’s essential to understanding what we are today. When I came to this job in late 1988, the Board had gone through a long process to plan for a new central library. They had hired a consultant. They had developed a large building plan, and they had taken trips to Miami, Memphis and Orlando to visit libraries. It was going to be similar to a large downtown central library. My predecessor had been on an academic bent and wanted to focus the library’s services on four areas: education, social science, business and one other I can’t remember, and he wanted the central library to reflect that. Within three weeks after I arrived on the job, we sat down to hire the architects. The Board had already tentatively secured a site on the community college campus. I went through the next two years working with the architects on a design.
By 1991, I began to understand that we were going in the wrong direction. We are the ‘burbs. Our community is family and kids. We didn’t have any business being an academic library or a downtown central library. If we built a large central library we would suck our branches dry and we wouldn’t serve our neighborhoods.
So, the Board Chair, Patti Armstrong and I started visiting a lot of libraries. We went to the West Coast. We visited library systems without central libraries and those with central libraries under 100,000 square feet. We had a plan to develop our branch system. And I knew that if we built a large central library we would never be able to build the branch system that our community needed. I knew that to have our business services we needed a central library, but it needed to be under 100,000 square feet.
I came home from traveling, and I knew what we had to do, but I didn’t know how to get there. Then, in early December 1991, I am sitting in my chair reading my Johnson County Sun, and there is a letter to the editor that said, “Why doesn’t the library use the Best building on 87th street?” And I thought, “Why don’t we?”
It had never crossed into our thinking to look at an existing building. I called the realtor. It was 80,000 square feet of nothing but space and spiders, and I knew it was right. It’s in the middle of asphalt for a lot of parking. It is in the middle of our population. It was perfect.
Of course everyone thought I was nuts. The architects and the Board were planning to build an architectural wonder that was going to win all these awards, and here’s Mona who gives them a box and says, “Let’s make a library of that.”
It wasn’t hard to convince the County Commissioners. It wasn’t too hard to convince the Library Board. I made the architects do the feasibility study over until it was feasible. The owners had to take the building off the market in time to have the proposal for the county to buy the property on the ballot for the election in November, 1992.
We opened in August of 1995. But remember what the internet was in 1992? The Internet was jut beginning to transform from an NSF-government project to the commercial internet. The GUI interface for the Internet didn’t happen until we were in the building. We were smart enough to know we didn’t know what we had in terms of the Internet, so we put in a huge electrical grid.
My vision for this building was maybe 20 workstations, and they were going to be on big tables–like six feet long, and people could do whatever they wanted. It would have multimedia production. We would provide all this equipment, and people could do all their work there—whether it was graphics or business-related. This was probably 1992 when I was envisioning this. We’ve made huge changes since then. It was a huge project to sell it to the powers that be and to the community and to make it happen.
What surprised you over the last 18 years?MC: That we could really achieve all we have. I’m not sure we could do all that today. Financially and politcally—it’s getting a lot harder today to wheel and deal. We had very supportive commissioners who really wanted to see improvements in the library system.
What did you enjoy the most?MC: Staff development. Creating jobs, creating programs, getting the right people, and my being able to give them the opportunity and the resources they need. Before I was hired, the library received special appropriation to create the business service, the collection, and staff. But there were people in reference that very much opposed that role. They were very fearful that it wouldn’t be supported and it would drag the library down.
What do you wish you could do over?MC: Oh, man. The Leawood building. I wouldn’t put it where it is. It should have been bigger. Better constructed.
What do you think is the biggest challenge for libraries and/or librarians in the next five-to-ten years—particularly here at Johnson County Library?
MC: I think the biggest challenge for public libraries is governance and financing. Being able to continue to have qualified members of the public on our board and being able to make the commitment. And certainly being able to finance our operations.
An equal challenge is determining what our role is. I continue to say that our role is providing an experience. For the public—whether that is going to be online or in buildings—a learning experience that is tailored to their needs.
I see schools changing; I hope they change. And I see a larger role for libraries in overall education. There was an article in Newsweek a few weeks ago on education in the next thirty years and how people are going to respond to it. I’m seeing homework help developing in a bigger, more pervasive way for everybody.
What advice would you give to librarians wanting to go into administration?MC: [Laughs.] Well, somebody has to do it, so I certainly hope that somebody takes up the challenge.
It is rewarding to be able to look back. To have created programs and to have made a difference in people’s lives, which is what I’m all about. My advice to people in order to get there is to be broadly educated. Certainly have technical knowledge. But you can’t be a technical person, because you won’t have the personality and motivation to deal with the vagaries of administration. You need a financial background—you don’t have to be an accountant, but you have to have some abilities in dealing with finances.
What advice would you give to the new County Librarian-or rather what advice will you give?MC: I’d say get acquainted. Be visible. Get acquainted with the community with the staff. Be visible and community minded. Because we are all about community.
The book Bowling Alone came out in 2000. It was central to the library’s strategic plan in 2001, and it was important to a lot of libraries. Where are we at now in terms of realizing the ideas of Bowling Alone?MC: We’ve reached the point where people are expressing their opinions. Both online and in other ways, we’re getting closer to people understanding that they have the ability to express their opinions—but we’re not to the point where we’re doing anything with it.
For four years we’ve been offering community issues forums, but we’re still struggling with how to make a difference, and that was the whole point: creating social capital. It’s a twenty year thing to take the ideas from Bowling Alone and make them happen.
What are your retirement plans?MC: [Laughs.] I don’t have any plans. I worked for fifty years. My plan is to have fun and do what I want to do. I’m going to travel. See what opportunities there are. It will all fall into place. I’m not pushing anything. I’m going to keep myself flexible, which I haven’t been able to do until now.
Every spring I’m in my car, and I have to do this or do that, or I’m driving out to Olathe, and I think, “I wish I could just keep going.” Well, that’s what I’m going to now…I’m just going to keep going. Now, when there is a $492 ticket to Paris, and I find out I have to leave on Sunday. I’m going to go.
Linda Hall Library
