Attack May Accelerate
Move Toward Digitization

���Our library will be changing a lot, more going in electronic than in paper format.������Mena Whitmore

(American Libraries Editor and Publisher Leonard Kniffel interviewed Mena Whitmore, acting director of the Pentagon Reference Center, on November 4, 2002. This transcript has been edited for clarity and length.)

Mena Whitmore: It���s so nice to have you here, in spite of our circumstance. You will find a different reality from a state-of-the-art library. We don���t have it right now, but we���re planning to have it in the future. The impact of this terrorism brought us a complex challenge, not only for our resources, for our location, but also for our personnel. We are still trying to work out the recovery. This recovery will take a long time. It���s not easy, because we never planned to see our situation going in this direction.

Fortunately, our management is very much [for] the library. . . . My boss [Pentagon Director of Administrative Services Fritz Kirklighter] is very much pro-library and gets results as much as we can immediately. For example, the new brigadier general that came to be our division head . . . is doing much to do the job for the library, and we prepared a statement of work for a new library. This is going to be a state-of-the-art library, a virtual library for the 21st century. We���re going in that direction.

American Libraries: Where will the library be?

Whitmore: [In] the old Pentagon Athletic Club [PAC]. This is very close to this area, in the North Parking, where it will be very accessible for the users.

AL: How does that relate to the plans for the Taylor Building in Virginia?

Whitmore: That���s a temporary location . . . now occupied by the library with our resources, and we have already made a plan for a temporary library in the Taylor Building. It���s going to be for two, three, four, or more years, until we come to this building. . . . We are trying to get in touch with the experts in renovation of libraries. . . . We already got in touch with three companies for them to . . . help us in the renovation of this dream library. . . .

AL: Would the former PAC give you the same amount of space?

Whitmore: I imagine so. Maybe they are going to give us as [much as] the former library, which used to be 28,000 to 30,000 feet, but by then of course our library will be changing a lot, more going in electronic than in paper format.

AL: You���re in the Taylor Building temporarily���in boxes, so to speak?

Whitmore: Yes.

AL: So this is going to be temporary for, say, five years, and then there���s a plan for coming back?

Whitmore: Yes, to come back to the Pentagon, because our users are clamoring for us to be in this building, because it has disadvantage to be in Taylor Building���it���s mostly the time and energy [to travel there and back] that they don���t like. And another disadvantage is, of course, the resources are closed: the books, the book stacks. In the past, the users, they used to come and browse the collection and now they can���t do that.

AL: When will the work at the Taylor Building be done?

Whitmore: In January 2003, we might be going���might, OK? So many things can happen. . . . But that���s the plan.

AL: Why go to all this trouble for five years?

Whitmore: Management decided [that] instead of being in boxes, let���s have resources located here a while. The users are clamoring, ���Let���s bring back the library!��� but nobody wants to give up their space for the library.

AL: But there���s a lot of negotiating going on?

Whitmore: All for space. There was a lot of displacement in the Pentagon before September 11 because of the renovation that was going on.

AL: Does it have anything to do with the role of a given organization in the war effort? Does the library have to perpetuate its role in serving the war effort?

Whitmore: [The emphasis is] very much in security these days, and every resource is going that way.

AL: In the struggle for space within the Pentagon, has the library tried to establish its value in any way to the current Department of Defense priorities? If you can���t do that, then others are going to jump in and say that what they are doing is more important, isn���t that true?

Whitmore: That���s true. . . . In this situation the librarians, we were very passive [and did not] let the management know what was our key position as a library per se. I guess we lived very comfortable, in our comfort zone, having that library, every day managing [as though] that was all that we needed . . . to have a lot of influence in the decision-makers. Those people that were ahead of me, the directors of the library, should have worked on this matter, to have influence on the management to show that the library is essential [to] what they are doing . . . to provide efficient technology, for example, in order to [make our resources accessible]. . . .

We are going [ahead with planning for] digitization. This development [the dislocation of the library] may be the incentive for this library to start thinking [of digitization]. [We have] 250,000 items and books; I don���t think it will [fit] here. . . . We are trying to [put] great emphasis on electronic resources. This fourth quarter we devoted very much to electronic resources. For example, we bought these full-text magazines, we added 15 databases to this library, we are planning a digitization project, and we already saw many companies that can help us to work on this project even with your United States Army Publishing Agency [USAPA]. We got the agreement that we will be publishing the military documents, especially those that come from the 1800s; most of the libraries, they don���t have that one, but we have. We made this verbal agreement with USAPA that we will be digitizing [documents] from the 1800s to 1994 and from 1994 to the current ones. We have very rich resources in that respect [that] we would like to digitize.

Again, digitization, electronic resources���it will be really a plus for us [because of] the physical facilities we won���t need. . . . Later we will go on with digitization project in the general collection, where we have our historical resources also. We are trying to identify which items are those we would like to digitize in the general collection and also in the law area���very rich [in] legal resources. [That means our library may have] in the future less space and more information in online systems. For that, we���re expecting to plan the education of the personnel related to all these technologies, [and] the librarians in the Pentagon Library will start thinking, ���What���s our role for the 21st century, what���s our idea, what should our profession be in 20 years, for example, or in 10 years, or five years?���

AL: You have been acting director since Kathy Earnest retired in May. Are you interested in the position?

Whitmore: It���s a big responsibility, and I guess I���d have to think twice about what will be the offer. It���s a tremendous responsibility not only because of the agency, but this is going to be planning a library, developing a library for the 21st century.

AL: There must be a certain amount of frustration in being ���acting,��� endlessly.

Whitmore: [Yes, there is.] Should I do directly the decision? I still have to ask my supervisor, ���Is it okay?��� Even for this interview. I have the same difficulty with personnel: ���Oh, she is just acting, she can���t make decisions.��� But there are situations where I have to do the decision, for the good, the bad, the ugly. I have to do it.

AL: In your own words, why after September 11 is there no Pentagon Library?

Whitmore: The reason is the terrorists. . . . We were not prepared at all to face this kind of situation. Never. Maybe fire, that���s why we had the sprinklers, but this kind of devastation . . . even management was not prepared to face this kind of thing. . . . Our plan was to move methodically���which resources should go first, which ones should go last, and all of that���but we were not prepared to move suddenly���everything, the personnel, the collection���to another area. Even management in that moment could not find a place to house the people, the books, the magazines. Nobody was prepared to face this kind of situation.

AL: How are you letting people who use and support the library know what to do?

Whitmore: We send e-mail notes to Pentagon staff. This library is available to anyone on the Pentagon staff. It���s for anybody who works in this office, all 23,000. We also get questions nationally and internationally and we have to answer them, by letter and e-mail. Our Web page is available for anybody.

AL: How are you going to deliver materials from the Taylor Building?

Whitmore: We requested a shuttle bus for our library exclusively. Then one of our employees drives every day, bringing books from the Taylor Building that were requested and then taking all these books that they returned. . . . Even buying books we do the same way. Now, we give a lot of emphasis to our users whenever they need any kind of research, any kind of item, we try to buy it the same day when it is requested.

AL: How is morale?

Whitmore: I would say as the consequence of this event, it was not the best. It affected us, all of us, [but] our life has to continue somehow, not only in personal but in work environment���even more work environment because our users are expecting us to give full service. . . . We have to make a big effort, think about the users, to serve. Our government, in the DOD [Department of Defense], last year gave a lot of emphasis on customer service; we [all] went for training . . . from the lower grades to the director���everybody. You have to put the emphasis on customer service.

AL: The country is at war. How would you describe the Pentagon Library���s role in the war effort?

Whitmore: Well . . . this is my personal view. In this situation, as any other organization of service, you have to help to accomplish the mission. Not in the war per se, going to war, but providing the resources that they need, especially these days when they are very much into the political aspects, political science; and we provide whatever they are asking us. . . . That���s our mission, really, to support the aim of the organization. We are providing resources as much as they need in an efficient way.