It is the Day of the Library today

Today we're dedicating the Seattle Review of Books to the Seattle Public Library, and City Librarian Marcellus Turner's proposed re-branding. We even published Paul's normal Monday Week in Readings post last night, to keep our focus.

We're publishing three pieces today on the topic:

  1. At 10:00am Laurel Holliday, who previously covered the public response to the rebranding effort, looks at how the Library Board is preparing themselves, and what the temperature over the issue is at City Hall.
  2. At noon Laurel is back with an honest-to-goodness mediated email interview (it's the only way he'll talk to the press) with Turner. Find out what the man himself has to say about his intitiative.
  3. Finally, at 2:00pm, we are publishing our own open letter to the Library board. Yes, we address the rebranding issue (spoiler! We don't think rebranding is necessarily a bad idea — but oh yeah, do we have issues with how this one is going), but even more, we address bigger systemic issues with our current library and what we'd like to see change.

We are strongly committed to the idea that best book city in the world to have the strongest library system in the world. Read along with us today, and take the time to let your opinions be known. Write the library board an email today.