Dallas Public Library

The Dallas Public Library is Looking for a New Director. Again.

It's been more than two years now since Laurie Evans stepped down as director of the Dallas Public Library. Since then, the operation has been steered by a pair of interim directors: first Corinne Hill, who set off for Tennessee earlier this year at least in part because the search for Evans' was mo ... More >>

Free Is Beautiful

Clearly, Mary Suhm's In No Rush To Find a Library Chief, as She Names Another Interim

Kris Sweckard​Received a note earlier in the day that on Tuesday, Mayor Mike, Comerica CEO Ralph Babb, Serita Ann Jakes (Mrs. T.D. to you) and a host of city council members are meeting at the North Oak Cliff Library Branch for "a major announcement" that will involve the "unveiling of [an] e-book ... More >>

American Library Association Prez Calls on Dallas to Stop Cutting From Library Budget

​The American Library Association, in town since Friday, begins its wind-down at the Dallas Convention Center this afternoon, when Lisa Loeb does her thing. But this morning, a Friend of Unfair Park notes: The state of the Dallas Public Library system is very much on the mind of ALA President Moll ... More >>

Corinne Hill No Longer Wants Dallas's Top Library Job. She's Taking Chattanooga's.

​Couple of days back I noted that Corinne Hill, the interim director of the Dallas Public Library system since July 2010, is slated to give a talk about "Re-imagining the Public Library in a Post-Recession Economy" when the American Library Association Midwinter Meeting comes to town next week. Bu ... More >>

Where The DCVB's Sending All Those Librarians Due to Descend Upon Downtown Next Week

​The American Library Association Midwinter Meeting's set for January 20-24 at the Dallas Convention Center, so you know what that means: Thousands of librarians, publishers and authors will be checking out the city for a few days. Perhaps the city can find someone amongst the bunch to lead the Da ... More >>

Bow to Your Partner

Yes, We Kindle: Now You Can Check Out an Amazon Title From a Dallas Public Library

​I've yet to make the transition to Kindle; I was reminded of yet another reason why over the weekend, which I'll explain later. But when a colleague, peeking over my shoulder, saw the news release in the in-box late yesterday -- the one from the city titled "Kindle e-book downloads now available ... More >>

Get Stuck on HistoryPin and Add Your Historic Photos of Dallas (Stories Too) to Giant Map

Dallas Public LibraryThis one is captioned: "Motorcycle gang parked in front of the Rialto, 01 January 1958."​Longtime Friends of Unfair Park are well acquainted with my fetish for old photos of forgotten Dallas; so then, to HistoryPin we go, thanks to this morning's friendly suggestion from Frien ... More >>

Author's Charts Show Where Dallas Ranks Among Nation's Libraries. (Spoiler: Low.)

Courtesy Friends of the Dallas Public Library​Karen Blumenthal was once a Wall Street Journal bureau chief and continues to write about the money business for the newspaper; and that's her name on the books Mr. Sam: How Sam Walton Built Walmart and Became America's Richest Man and Bootleg: Murder, ... More >>

City Settles With Owner of Land Where It Will Build the "New" Park Forest Library Branch

The present-day Park Forest branch on Forest and Cromwell, which will sit empty once its replacement is built​At some point this morning, the city council will vote to pay something called 11900 Marsh Lane, L.P. out of Houston a little more than $800,000 for a piece of land currently on the tax ro ... More >>

Checking Out the Future of the Library

​Wasn't so long ago that the Dallas Public Library system appeared to be on life support, a victim of yet another round of city budget cuts. But at City Hall yesterday, during the council's Quality of Life Committee meeting, Interim Director of Libraries Corrine Hill insisted: Quite the contrary. ... More >>

Whatever Happened to Dallas' Restaurant Menus?

Researching this week's feature story on the Dallas dining scene gave me the chance to visit the archives of the Dallas Public Library, where I spent hours immersed in dozens of old community cookbooks uncovered by Texas/Dallas History Department manager Carol Roark - who would qualify for a dedicat ... More >>

The City Says It Needs Your Help Putting New Titles on the Dallas Public Library's Shelves

​Even though the city council ultimately added half a mil back to the Dallas Public Library's new-materials budget back in September, seems the grand total of more than a million wasn't enough to keep up with the demand for new titles. Hence the e-mail that just arrived from City Hall asking citiz ... More >>

Comerica to Announce It's Putting Bucks Back Into Books at Two Southern Sector Libraries

​Late last night, a Friend of Unfair Park sent word that this morning Mayor Tom Leppert would be inviting media to the City Hall Flag Room to announce that Comerica will be "adopting" the North Oak Cliff Branch Library with "a large donation." Said the note, "It will be in hopes that they set the ... More >>

Dallas Libraries Forced to Find a New Working Model Amidst Staff Layoffs, Budget Cutbacks

​By now you've no doubt read all 624 pages of City Manager Mary Suhm's proposed FY2010-11 budget. Or at least heard: Library branches are losing staffers, which means those who stay will have to do more with less; the downtown outpost's specialty floors will stay dark all but 26 hours a week; and ... More >>

Some Light Weekend Reading: City Manager Manager's Proposed FY 2010-11 Budget

​Moments ago, the city posted to its website the proposed budget City Manager Mary Suhm will discuss with the council at 9 a.m. Monday. It's not a detailed breakdown by any stretch, but a terse, bullet-pointed 53-page summation of what we've known for months was coming -- from the 450 "civilian la ... More >>

A Week Before Mary Suhm Debuts Budget, an Announcement to "Save Our Dallas Libraries"

​In recent weeks we've taken sneak peeks at how pending budget cuts will more than likely gut the library system. But till Monday rolls 'round and Dallas City Manager Mary Suhm debuts her proposed FY2010-11 budget, we won't know for sure how deep those wounds will run. Nevertheless, Friends of the ... More >>

As Deep Budget Cuts Loom, the Dallas Genealogical Society Sends Out a Cry for Help

​This morning, there were several e-mails in the Unfair Park in-box concerning City Manager Mary Suhm's latest suggestions for cuttinggutting the budget of the Dallas Public Library system. Two I'll need to set aside till Suhm calls back (she's in meetings all morning). But others direct our atten ... More >>

Suhm Doesn't Know What's Gotta Go Yet. She Only Knows This Budget Process Is "Painful."

Sam MertenCity Manager Mary Suhm​"Painful. Painful, painful, painful, painful."That's what City Manager Mary Suhm said when I asked her earlier today how it's going as she works to gut the budget before council's return next month."Painful."As I noted below, I wanted to talk to Suhm about some e-m ... More >>

Is Bookmarks at NorthPark Center the Future of Libraries Nationwide?

​A couple of weeks back we took at look at City Manager Mary Suhm's proposed cuts for the Dallas Public Library system -- fewer workers at the branches, shorter hours downtown and more, meaning, of course, less. But libraries are in trouble nationwide, besieged by budget cuts and encroaching techn ... More >>

Hot Links

Dallas Public Libraries Finally Getting Into the Digital Download Bidness This Month

​So says a memo from Assistant City Manager Forest Tucker to the city council sent last night: On May 11, the Dallas Public Library will go into OverDrive, the Cleveland, Ohio-based company that builds Web sites for libraries and allows users 24/7 download access to, so far, about 100,000 audioboo ... More >>

Reading Up on Former Dallas Public Libraries Director, Pioneer and Anti-Censorship Activist Lillian Moore Bradshaw, Who's Died at 95

Lillian Moore Bradshaw​I've spent the better part of the morning trying to get to know Lillian Moore Bradshaw, who has died at the age of 95. The memo City Manager Mary Suhm sent to the mayor and city council last night is brief, a few sentences containing a few notable accomplishments -- chief am ... More >>

Fa-La-La-La-La

Feeling Bookish

Library Board Created Politically Appointed Foundation, Only to "Table it For a Year"

We finally spoke with Municipal Library Board chair Suzanne Charriere concerning the Dallas Public Library Foundation, which was voted into existence earlier this week. Turns out, it won't do much of anything until a year from now. If then."Rather than try to do something right now with the economy ... More >>

The New Dallas Public Library Foundation Will Be Filled By and With Political Appointees

Friends of the Dallas Public Library's David Kusin, at far right, with Mayor Tom Leppert and AT&T officials during a recent $500,000 donation presentationYesterday, in a sunlit room on the second floor of the J. Erik Jonsson Central Library, the (mostly) ladies of the Municipal Library Board did ... More >>

Panic in Preston Center!

We tried this once before, so here goes again: Can you please, pretty please, help the folks in the Dallas Public Library's Texas/Dallas History & Archives figure out just what in the heck's going in this picture? Because, right now, this is all they got to go on: "Crowds of children outside Pre ... More >>

A New Unfair Park Feature: Name The Person or Place in That Old Photo!

Song Shopping

Doc Gibbs is in the house…er, mall

Boo! It's 1962.

Catch a classic at the central branch

I Like Turtles

Kid Kabuki

Shutter Show

The DPL honors the film that got us here

Dallas Firefighters and Cops Love...Tucson?

Tell Us A Story

Around the World in 24

Mystery Date

Which lady will meet you each week?

Our Fair Pimp

Was it hard out there for Henry Higgins?

Tinseltown Treasures

Tyler's reels get special screenings

Kink Lit

In Cold Blood

Best Library You've Never Heard Of

University Park Public Library

Letters

Book 'Em

Arts and Letters Live is Texas Bound with Daryl Johnston

Night & Day

June 3 - 9, 1999

Merry what?

Night & Day

October 29 - November 4, 1998

Events for the week