After 51 years with the St. Paul library system, including her last five years managing the popular Highland Park branch, Pat Gerlach grew sick of conflicts with top administrators and retired in October 2020. She gave a day’s notice.
“I didn’t really want to retire then,” said Gerlach, in an interview. “I just got fed up. I had never had a huge argument or terrible event in all my years working there, and I knew it was going to go that way. I said, you know what? I quit tomorrow.”
The St. Paul Public Library system has continued to receive positive overall reviews from patrons in a recent customer service audit, despite heavily and temporarily rolling back in-person services during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Behind the scenes, however, staff say the waters have been anything but smooth. In the past two years, the St. Paul libraries have lost nearly one-fourth of their workforce — at least 55 of some 235 full-time and part-time employees — to retirements and departures.
Some have chalked up staff exits to a national retirement and career-hopping trend hastened by the pandemic.
“We are aware that library staff turnover is reflective of the larger ‘Great Resignation,’ ” said Kim Horton, a spokesperson for the Friends of the St. Paul Public Library, in an email.
However, interviews with current and former employees underscore that the issue for many wasn’t pay or benefits, or even the rigors of making do during a public health crisis. Many workers who left landed in suburban library systems with similar pay scales and exposure to the general public.
FROM DVD THEFTS TO CONCUSSIONS
For Gerlach and other employees, concerns about public safety was a common theme, though that wasn’t the only one.
St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter’s administration removed police officers from library hotspots in early 2019 and more recently resumed full library hours at a time of near-chronic understaffing, further taxing staff worn thin by employee departures and run-ins with unruly patrons.
Workers at all levels, even branch managers, have complained of not feeling supported as issues arise, from violent incidents to questions around promotions, special projects and scheduling during the pandemic. Disciplinary letters issued to staff are a growing concern, as are thefts of DVDs and other library materials. An austere budget hasn’t helped.
Five of the library system’s 13 buildings have electronic gates intended to alert workers if a patron attempts to leave without first checking out material. They don’t all work.
“Due to their varying condition and age, the gates are in various states of functionality,” said library communications manager Stacy Opitz, in an email. “We have not had the funding to upgrade the hardware and software. We are seeking funding to support investment in up-to-date technology for library buildings.”
Last summer, a staff team recommended discontinuing locked DVD cases. “Keeping DVDs in locked cases, which also required staff time and effort to remove cases, was cumbersome and received patron and staff complaints regarding the equity of having some libraries with DVDs in locked cases and some without,” Opitz said.
Meanwhile, a growing number of responsibilities have been forced onto part-time library associates who say they lack training to deal with the challenges, from medical emergencies to criminal acts. In an interview, a former employee recalled working closely with a college tutor who was struck in the head so hard by a library patron that she was taken to the hospital with a concussion. The patron remains a regular visitor.
AFSCME GRIEVANCE
In December, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees labor union filed a class-action grievance against management of the St. Paul Public Library system, focused specifically on security concerns. Opitz said the grievance has been settled, but declined further elaboration because it involves private personnel data.
An AFSCME spokesperson did not return calls for comment, but some 34 St. Paul librarians are represented by the Professional Employees Association, which has raised similar concerns about labor practices.
“We do recognize and agree that there are some concerning issues, and we’re handling things a little differently than AFSCME,” said Regina Etoll, president of the Professional Employees Association. “In particular, it’s within the past 18 months that a lot of these concerning behaviors have come about, and we’re trying to figure out how to handle that, with people leaving who have good work histories. Why? What’s happening in the last 18 months that’s different?”
CRIME AT CENTRAL, RONDO AND DAYTON’S BLUFF LOCATIONS
Not every branch has been impacted equally. The library system spans the George Latimer Central Library off Kellogg Boulevard, 12 branch locations and a bookmobile. From mid-June to mid-February, library staff filed 214 internal incident reports detailing everything from narcotics use in restrooms and elevators to indecent exposure and threats of violence.
Of those reports, more than one-third — or 76 incidents — originated at the downtown Central Library, and one-fourth, or 54 incidents, took place at the Rondo Community Library at Dale Street and University Avenue. Another 32 incidents took place at the Dayton’s Bluff branch. Together, the three sites account for three-fourths of all reported emergencies and patron conflicts.
“All of the stress and traumas and mental and emotional tolls that a pandemic takes on a community, all of that shows up in a heightened way in our libraries,” acknowledged Deputy Mayor Jaime Tincher, in an interview. “It’s been really impressive how well (staff) have stepped up and served as a community resource.”
In the evenings when schools let out and foot traffic picks up, the library system has used contracted security guards and community ambassadors rather than on-site police officers since January 2019. The libraries began fully reopening last summer, but security guards only returned to the Central Library in November and the Rondo Library in February.
“The security vendor is facing worker shortages like every other industry,” said library system Director Catherine Penkert, in an interview. “Contract security doesn’t always work well in a public library, which is an extremely complex space. You need a high skill level. Previously, staff told us we are not getting contract security that meets our needs. We worked with our staff and our vendor to make sure we are getting security that is a good fit for our setting.”
PROPOSAL FOR TRAINED SECURITY
In recent months, the libraries have hired a social worker for the Rondo Library, held staff trainings around conflict de-escalation and trauma-informed customer service, and proposed a $1.5 million security overhaul that, if approved, would be funded through the federal American Rescue Plan, Penkert said.
The proposal calls for full-time, trained security to be incorporated directly into the library workforce.
Penkert, the city’s former Right Track youth internship manager, received the top library position in January 2018 despite an educational background in public policy and social work. It wasn’t the position she had applied for — a hiring panel had unanimously recommended her to run St. Paul Parks and Recreation — but the mayor expressed interest in seeing the city’s libraries run more like extensions of schools and rec centers.
As a direct result of the pandemic, much of 2020 and 2021 was spent instead coordinating contactless, grab-and-go “Library Express” services and remote programming.
Now that the libraries have fully reopened for in-person visits, some of the patrons walking in the door have deep emotional needs.
“The pandemic has had unique and disproportionate impacts on front-line workers everywhere, and the trends impacting front-line service industries, we’re seeing them impact libraries,” Penkert said. “Mental health issues, substance abuse and addiction, everything we see in our communities is reflected in our library.”
PART-TIME ASSOCIATE WITH FULL-TIME RESPONSIBILITIES
As a part-time library associate at the Central Library, Morgan Strickland was happy to be trusted to oversee special St. Paul collections focused on the Winter Carnival, the Rondo neighborhood and other city lore, but was frustrated as her responsibilities grew without added resources or a promotion to full-time service, which would have carried benefits.
Strickland, who was hired in 2015, holds an associate’s degree in library information technology and an undergraduate degree in history but no formal training in archiving. She said she nevertheless found herself in increasing demand as the city’s racial reparations committee began asking for historical documents.
“I became the subject matter expert, which is difficult because I was only there three days per week,” said Strickland, who was taken aback as other workers around her retired without being replaced. “I was specifically told the St. Paul collection was not our priority.”
After years of hand-transcribing a newspaper index into spreadsheet software, Strickland recalled emailing the editor-in-chief of the Pioneer Press to pitch a formal project that would involve better organizing and archiving the library’s newspaper collection. She initially received permission from the public service manager overseeing the Central Library to reach out to the newspaper, but she was quickly told to drop it.
“My supervisor advised me not to bring the project up again to (the public service manager),” said Strickland, who said the library was nearly devoid of patrons at that point in the pandemic, an ideal time to focus on the collection. “That’s so discouraging.”
MOUNTING PUBLIC SAFETY INCIDENTS
Then there were the mounting public safety incidents, like the patron who sat at a back table in the downtown library playing with a large knife. Last fall, while Strickland was serving as the back-up team leader for the day, a security guard called paramedics when a sleeping patron couldn’t be roused. Rather than stay until the ambulance arrived, her team leader left her in her charge.
In December 2021, workers reportedly became alarmed when an unwelcome patron who had once attempted to throw a chair returned to the downtown library. Rather than deal with the situation, a team leader allegedly turned to employees and said, “I have a meeting to go to, can someone call the police?”
Strickland, who wasn’t at work that day, said the incident forms the basis of the class-action grievance filed by AFSCME in December, and was one of the factors that led her to resign in early February after seven years with the library system.
She contributed her own concerns to the grievance, which roped in input from multiple staff around her: “There’s absolutely no reason I should be asked to be team leader when two managers are in the building,” Strickland said.
Penkert explained that a branch manager works 40 hours per week, but a branch may be open 51 hours. “Even just covering regular open hours, it can’t be that the branch manager is the only team lead around. This is a rotating role,” she said. “Longer-term and full-time staff are more likely to serve in that role than part-time or newer staff.”
SECURITY GUARDS RETURN TO LIBRARIES
For Gerlach, an ongoing debate over the future of the Hamline-Midway Library, which could be remodeled or torn down and redeveloped, has underscored the sense of division between workers and administrators.
“(Administrators) are not coming out when there’s a problem,” said another former employee, recalling staff having car windows broken by teenagers at the Rondo Library garage a few years ago. “There’s a real disconnect. They should office in branches.”
Gerlach recalled a time when public service managers overseeing multiple branches could assist branch managers as issues arose.
“What the expectation is, is that branch managers or other agency staff will handle these dangerous situations on their own,” Gerlach said. “Recently, knives have been a big problem. This is scary to our staff.”
Penkert said staff are still urged to call 911 when a situation warrants it, such as the arrival of a patron who has been temporarily banned.
‘NO DEPARTMENT MORE BELOVED’
A year ago, the St. Paul City Council ordered an audit of the city’s constituent and customer service operations, focused on 10 city departments. Among its findings, the 99-page audit conducted by Cultivate Strategy found that “no department in the city is more beloved than the St. Paul Public Library,” which enjoyed a “consistently excellent reputation, internally and externally.”
They noted the library system maintains a Library Community Helpdesk phone line staffed in multiple languages, a social worker stationed at the Rondo Library and other resources that go beyond locating books.
At the same time, the audit highlighted staff concerns within the library system about the lack of opportunity to decompress after a difficult patron encounter.
“When you don’t have enough staff, you can’t take longer breaks or move to a different place within the building or go to a different building,” said an unnamed library employee, quoted in the audit. “We feel it more and more now. It’s a grind every day.”
Presented with the audit’s findings in January, members of the city council acknowledged that too much had been asked of the library system, and wondered aloud if instead of expanding library hours, the city should be trimming them.
“We fight to keep our services at a high level. We fight to keep our libraries open as many hours as we possibly can, and our rec centers as well,” said council President Amy Brendmoen at the time. “At a certain point, it might be more transparent for us to close libraries, and let people know ‘we do not have enough resources to keep this library open this many hours,’ as opposed to asking two people to cover a shift that two people simply cannot handle.”
