Annexation Vote: Library's Historical Collection, Endowment Funds Would Remain with City

Spanning a back wall of the Enumclaw city library is a display case that contains photographs, paintings, old documents, original books in the original Danish they were printed in, a rather comprehensive collection of Enumclaw High School yearbooks and a number of other artifacts representative of Enumclaw history.

When discussing who would be the appropriate steward of this Enumclaw history, it seems natural to point to the , which maintains an impressive collection of three-dimensional items as well.

However, in the 30 years that former library director Bob Baer has overseen the city library, it was Baer who took it upon himself to maintain and care for much of the written and photographed history of the Plateau. (A lot of it is still stored in the filing cabinets that sit below the display case.)

Baer said he saw it as function of what a library should do: keep and provide citizens with a connection to their common history. After all, the microfiche of archived editions of the Enumclaw Courier and the Enumclaw Herald, as well as the Enumclaw Courier-Herald, sit at the library -- not at the newspaper's offices downtown.

Over the years, maintaining the historical collection has fallen to a lower priority, Baer said, but staff continue to get regular requests to delve into the cabinets in search of information about an old property, the age of a building or a photograph for personal use.

In the past, library staff would go ahead and run copied photographs to the University of Washington photo lab to produce a copy for the patron, Baer said.

"For the community, the local history is still very important," Baer said. "You sense that from the people who come in asking for the material."

What Happens to Collection with Annexation?

To make it easier for those interested in perusing local history from home, the library has been working with the Washington State Library's Rural Heritage Project to reproduce images of documents online (see this website, also accessible from the city library website) representative of smaller to medium sized communities like Enumclaw.

"A lot of stuff that was saved can now be shared," he said, such as the Pioneer history of Enumclaw compiled by members of the Women's Progressive Club. "It was the first thing bound between two covers that was written about Enumclaw. That's now searchable. And there tons more to do. I'd like to see it continue with the library having a role."

At this point, with the prospect of the city library possibly annexing into King County Library System (KCLS), it's unclear if that will be the case.

According to Julie Brand, a spokesperson for KCLS, there is no intention on the part of the library system to remove any of the historical collection from Enumclaw. Brand cites libraries in Renton and Burien as examples of special collections that remain at the original city library. "Obviously, you want those materials to be in the place where the people who want to access them are," she said.

Enumclaw city administrator Mike Thomas, in the city's , supports Brand in referring to the library transfer agreement that states that KCLS would retain "as a permanent collection, all books and materials including historical artifacts that are unique to Enumclaw's history. Such items shall be a permanent collection and KCLS is to allow public access to such items."

For Baer, however, "retain" and "maintain" are two different things. There's a difference between keeping the items in storage and actually going through, identifying and indexing them for easy public use. With at the end of 2011 goes much of the in-house knowledge about what this historical collection contains. And for him, the terms of the transfer agreement pertaining to this historical collection "are vague and remain vague."

According to Thomas, there is currently no detailed list that outlines exactly what is in this collection, and before any assumptions about what might happen to the items if annexation is approved, it would take up to six months for library staff to fully inventory what is in the city library and then define "what of the current collection should be permanently retained. ... I would think that the Library Board would be integral to the task as well as they have a good understanding of the historical aspects of the library," he wrote in an email to Patch this week.

A Volunteer Project

Baer said he didn't set out as the city librarian to take on this history project. When he was first hired and the library was still located in the now Stevenson-Yerxa building, the entire historical collection was in a cabinet that sat in a room that was a gift from Scholtfeldt family, with "newspapers piled in front of it."

This collection also included several three-dimensional artifacts which Baer said he'd inherited; since then, he's been focused on the print and photograph collection.

"I poked in to it and was interested in acquiring that type of learning experience over time," he continued. Three decades later, as he was getting ready to clear out and retire, he was still planning to index several boxes of The Courier-Herald photos from the late 1960s as a volunteer project.

Baer acknowledges that there is precedence for KCLS working with a local historical society to preserve and maintain a historical collection, such has on Vashon Island.

However, without being able to see in writing how his work from the past 30 years might continue, he remains wary both for the future of the historical collection as well as for two endowment funds set up in support of the local library.

Schlotfeldt and Lafromboise Funds

The Herman and Louise Bartman Schlotfeldt fund was established in 1963 to support efforts to preserve and enhance community access to local history, said Baer. It was originally set up with leftover money from the construction of the Pioneer Room at the old library location. Recent contributors to the fund include the estate of John Steiner as well as the Logging Legacy Foundation, with funds left over from the creation of the Logging Legacy sculpture in front of the library, according to Enumclaw jeweler Tom Poe.

There is currently about $20,000 remaining in that fund, Baer said.

The Richard R. Lafromboise Memorial Fund was set up in the 80s with an initial $100,000 in principal that wasn't to be touched, Baer said. The intent of this fund was determined to be supporting new technology, helping to maintain the library's collection and staff development. In the past, interest earned on that principal has been used to move the city library into an automated cataloguing system. In 2011, the fund also helped to pay for database subscriptions when the city allotted no book budget for the library.

Baer estimates there's probably about $15,000 above the initial $100,000 in principal though he admits post retirement, he may not be up-to-date on the actual fund amount.

The transfer agreement with KCLS states that "all expenditures from the endowment funds shall be at the sole discretion of Enumclaw and in accordance with the terms and conditions of such endowment funds."

Having that in writing is something, acknowledged Baer, but the question remains for him how those funds would be implemented with there would no longer be a connection to library operations if annexed to KCLS.

Thomas, in a reply to Patch, clarified the intention is that the city would cooperate with the Library Board to determine how the funds would be spent if there were a need. "What the funds get expended on I believe will be a function of what may at a given point of time be important, or a point of emphasis, for the City regarding library service, and familiarity over time with KCLS’ level and type of library service provided at the Enumclaw Library," he said.

At this point in time it is not known how the city may choose to spend the endowment funds, Thomas said.

In spite of the city's efforts at putting out an FAQ pertaining to annexation and explain what would happen with the funds, Poe, who was speaking on behalf of the Logging Legacy Foundation, said he was still under the impression that the city's endowment funds would go into a KCLS fund pool and possibly never be used for Enumclaw -- which was their original intent.

After the Logging Legacy memorial was installed, "we had additional funds left over and the natural implication was it should go to the library," Poe said. At one point, there was discussion over possibly developing a 'logging legacy' room in the library, so the money "lends itself hand-in-hand with the library."

Poe said that though he's felt there has been a lack of open discussion and dialogue with the community about the city's financial situation and what other options there were for sustaining the public library, as long as those funds remain with the city and the Library Board decides how they should be expended, he has no cause for complaint.

"The library is a function of the city," he said. The funds shouldn't be used to replace gutters in an alley or used in any way outside of their original purposes, even if KCLS has no say in the matter. "They [the funds] were set up for the betterment of society based on what the library did for them [the donors]," he said. "The money should go toward a meaningful effort."