The issue of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh's financial distress and need to close local branches came up in a thread on the Pitt sports message boards. Someone proposed that the city let Pitt and CMU take over the Carnegie Library System which I think would be a bad idea because all the branches would be a big long-term drain on their own library systems.

I came up with a proposal to make it worthwhile for Pitt specifically to get involved. Pitt has needed to expand Hillman for since the 80s (it was in the last Master Plan ten years ago and never got acted on). Here is my proposed solution.

Sell the Carnegie Library building to Pitt (say $30 million). Take that money and put it in an endowment for supporting the system and local branches (forget Andrew's intent of requiring public support, he never envisioned such a population drain and an inept local government). Make the sale to Pitt legally contingent that the Oakland branch and all of its existing holdings would remain open and free the public in perpetuity (e.g. the reorganized Carnegie Library at the University of Pittsburgh would coexist as a Carnegie Library branch and the main library for Pitt's ULS). Include stipulations that a majority percentage of all revenue (e.g. library fines) generated from non-university affiliate patrons would go to the Carnegie Library System and that some space must be reserved for the Carnegie's public programing. Consolidate the duplicative library services (like microfilm) and sell off duplicative holdings that exist at Hillman Library in order to free up space (probably could free up the entire ground floor of Hillman, maybe more). This would make the Carnegie the site for items that are of the greatest public interest (e.g. things like new releases, fiction, local history) as well as the major site of student and public study. In the subsequent space freed up at Hillman, the crowded specialty library centers (e.g. Latin American, Asian, etc) driving the need for expansion there can grow into the new spaces reducing/eliminating the need for a physical addition to Hillman. Hillman would become mostly dedicated to specific research specialty collections, specifically for UCIS, and its rarer collections still protected from non-university affiliate loss and damage. This benefits Pitt by giving it a historic, classic library space to call its own and reduce/eliminating the need to physically expand Hillman. It hurts Pitt by splitting its major holdings between two facilities across Schenley Plaza (perhaps they could build a tunnel in the future) and costing $$$ it really doesn't have (purchase cost and rennovation/consolidation costs, adding additional librarians/staff). It benefits the Carnegie by setting up a endowment that would generate about $1.35 million a year (at 4.5% rate of return) which would provide the same amount of money they are planning to save by closing the branches, plus eliminates the upkeep costs of maintaining (and staffing entirely themselves) their largest central branch in Oakland. Downside for the Carnegie is that the Oakland Library is would be much more crowded by students and it is embarrassing to divest itself of its flagship.

Macy's listens

Macy's downtown Pittsburgh store has removed the offending display. Currently, it is covered by a black curtain. One would hope that Pitt items will be displayed in the near future, but in any case, corporate Macy's, who was responsible for the display, has proven their willingness to listen to local concerns. Credit must be given where credit is due. Kudos for doing the right thing Macy's.

Macy's downtown Pittsburgh is no friend of Pittsburgh

It has come to my attention that somehow, Macy's downtown store has the gall to put a display of a school's team that must not be mentioned up in their store front window. And make no mistake, this university is a competitor to the University of Pittsburgh not just in the remaining sports it has the nerve to play Pitt in, but also student recruitment, government funding, and research grant applications. In fact, it has been noted for not playing nice with other institutions in the past, particularly the PASSHE, in stark contrast to the relationship shared by Pitt and its neighbor, Carnegie-Mellon University.

This just reeks of nose-thumbing imaginable at a university that has recently been ranked as the number one public university in the nation in terms of positive impact on its urban community, and that has also recently been celebrated in several national publications, including the New York Times and USA Today, as a key contributor in the revitalization of the Pittsburgh economy.

One can only assume that a lack of local sensitivities and local culture awareness are beginning to surface following the acquisition and re-branding of the local Kaufmann's Department Store chain. Kaufmann's would have never displayed such an affront to the local university in their storefront windows, in fact, it might have done the opposite.

How can Macy's think it is a good business model is to insult the alumni of a university with over 77,000 alumni in Allegheny County (well over 3 times as many as Penn State), 32,500 current students, and 200,000 additional alumni across the United States?

File your own complaint at the link below:

Macy's Complaints