Pentagon Library Loses
in Competition for Space
Caught in a space scramble following the terrorist attack on the Pentagon last September 11, the Pentagon Library and its staff have come out the losers. The bulk of the library’s collection is in storage in the Crystal City section of Arlington, Virginia; staffers and users must shuttle back and forth from a small storefront Reference Center on the Pentagon concourse. And that’s the way it’s going to stay for the foreseeable future, Pentagon Director of Administrative Services Fritz Kirklighter told American Libraries November 6.
Kirklighter, whose oversight also includes the Pentagon post office and passports and visas, said the Taylor Building in Crystal City will be retrofitted to library specifications, perhaps as soon as February 2003. The Reference Center will remain in the Pentagon, but any hope of bringing the whole library back is “six or eight years down the road.”
Massive renovation was already under way at the Pentagon when the attack occurred, said Army Librarian Ann Parham, but she was shocked at how quickly after September 11 the space slotted for the library was reassigned to another military unit. Parham, who suffered second-degree burns in the attack, told AL a users group of about a dozen people has formed to urge the Office of the Secretary of Defense to return the library to the Pentagon sooner.
Former Pentagon Library Director Kathryn Earnest told AL she retired in May largely because she was unhappy with the way the situation was being handled. “I am at that point where I just decided I was tired of fighting,” she said.
“We’ve been on a real seesaw here,” Kirklighter admitted, “and the librarians bear the brunt, trying to do their jobs from a suitcase.” But the decision to relocate the library was made at the top levels of the Defense Department, he said. “People above her and me decided and said, ‘Do we want people in that building or do we want books?’ It came down to that.”
Posted November 11, 2002.
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