Box 13, Folder 20, Document 8

Box 13, Folder 20, Document 8

THE ATLANTA PUBLIC LIBRARY

Atlanta 3, Georgia
JOHN HALL JACOBS

DIRECTOR

May 22, 1967

Honorable Ivan Allen, Jr.
Mayor of Atlanta

City Hail

Atlanta, Georgia 30303

Dear Mayor Allen:

The news item in the Atlanta Constitution of May 11 has come
to the attention of the Library Board. The article made the
following request as presented to you by the Atlanta Summit
Leadership Conference:

"Desegregation of main library staff and desegregation
and merit promotions in branch staffs."

We would like to present our position to you.

First the staff at the Main Library is not segregated. Ail
positions in the Main Library are filled with the best quali-
fied people we can get. There is a terrific shortage of
professional librarians throughout the country and therefore
we are pleased to employ trained people whenever and where-
ever we can get them. Due to the fact that the salaries have
been low and even yet are not too competitive, we are failing
to attract graduates from either of our local library schools,
Emory University and Atlanta University.

As for the second part of the request, it has been the practice
of the Atlanta Public Library for a period of years to advertise
all vacancies first to the staff. There has been no situation
in branch promotions where a qualified applicant has been re-
fused a promotion on the basis of race. The branch staffs are
not segregated.

We feel that the Summit leaders have received a mistaken
impression of the make-up of the library staff. Our motto has
been and is to hire the best person we can get at all times
for each job to better serve our community.

Sincerely,

VW. () VA Ue ;
Robinson W. Schilling

President, Library Board
RWS: dw