To: All of the kind people who want our library to be everything that it can be,

Mr. Riede, Jr., I must admit that I do have a problem trusting you. As you know, before the scab was added on to the side of our library and when I asked you if you had done a 'Cost versus Benefit' analysis to justify the expense, you said, "Oh, there is one out there someplace." And, as you will recall, after nine months of requesting to see the Cost versus Benefits, the result was that a CvB did not exist.

In keeping with your above theme to discredit my interest in optimizing the role of our library in our community, you allege that I have a vendetta against the library. Again, a vendetta is a bitter feud to destroy something.

First, your duplicity confuses the boundaries. I am not pinpointing the library because I want to destroy it. I am pinpointing your leadership because I want to optimize the role that our library can play for leading the progress toward civility and literacy in all forms of communication. Reading is merely one form of communication.

When members of a community challenge their leaders then one of two things are likely to happen. Either the leader improves his leadership skills. Or, the leader resigns to avoid the publicity.

When we operate at the community level then we have a 'leadership culture'. By watching you and other leaders of key public information organizations, I have concluded that 'denial' is often used as a tool in our Cuyahoga Falls 'leadership culture'.

The sad part of the denial dynamic is that our 'leadership culture' sets the stage for our 'drug culture' to continue repeating patterns of drug abuse. So, we have teenagers repeating the pattern of denial in a similar manner to the way that our 'leadership culture' repeats the patterns of denial.

Whether you like it or not, Jr., your leadership and your denial patterns do impact our community.

So, we can ask the question -- what can be done about this sad state of affairs? Many members of our community would say, "Replace the leader." But, I am not convinced that replacing one leader or even all of the leaders in our community would change a repeating pattern of denial and purposeful confusion of the boundaries. So, I do not ask you to resign. But, I do challenge you to operate at a higher level problem solving.

Please allow me to link you to several webpages that I have prepared to help you in my challenge to you. Here they are:
http://tnl3000.com/_....aspx
http://tnl3000.com/s....aspx

In summary, Jr., I think that you will have a very difficult time continuing to promote your illusion that somehow I want to destroy our library. However, if you want to start cooperating by developing a share purpose statement with me then I am relatively sure that all of the kind people that want to optimize our library in our community will appreciate your new direction and commitment to cooperate.

Again, I am at your service. When can we meet?
Lou Schott
www.tnl3000.com

To: All of the kind people who want our library leaders to provide leadership for our community,

I want to applaud Mr Riede Jr. for expressing his opinion -- using a public forum. This seems to be a useful place to develop some of the principles required to optimize our future library.

I also share Mr Riede Jr.'s view that a library is more than just the printed book ... .
And, I agree that a library has been a learning place for people of all ages, ... .

Jr. alleges that I have a vendetta against our library. A vendetta is defined as a bitter, destructive feud.

Organizational leaders have learned that some problems require a pinpointed analysis to construct (not destruct) a positive future.

Relative to the past, I think that our library is probably somewhat better than it was 5 years ago. By better, I mean that the quality of service is more relevant than it was 5 years ago. But, I am merely expressing my opinion.
And, I do not have enough access to relevant data to validate my opinion.

Given the resources that Jr. has at his disposal (as Chairman of the Library Board of Trustees), I think that Jr. could have made a stronger case to support his opinion. For example, if Jr. were 'internet literate' then he could run a search against the library data base and find data like the following:
- 1% of the patrons in the Cuyahoga Falls library read 50 books per year
- 20% ... read 25 books per year
- 20% ... read less than 5 books per year
- 9% ... read less than 1 book per year
- 50% ... read zero books per year.
And, of the people in the last category, 40% of of 50% check out DVDs that do not require any reading.

Of the total population in Cuyahoga Falls, only 30% of the homes are registered as patrons. Let me say it again. This is the kind of data that would show serious and competent library leadership. Again, the above data is used to show the kind of data that would be useful. It is not actually the real data.

Continuing with assumption that we need library leaders who are 'internet literate', Jr. could post the above data on his personal website and send it out to 30,000 people in our community for whom he provides wise counsel and a vision of the future.

Jr. suggests that I spend my time and energy researching ways that I can help our library and its patrons by increasing the number of literate people. Again, I agree with Jr. I would be delighted to meet with Jr. to develop a vison where 80% of the people in our community know how to use the library and the internet to solve problems at new and higher levels.

In summary, Mr. Riede, Jr., when can we meet for about 90 minutes to get this initiative off the ground?

I am at your service,
Lou Schott
Cuyahoga Falls