New library director takes over

On his first day on the job, Spencer Watts settled into a chair in his office and pronounced himself pleased with what he had seen so far.

“It’s a good system,” the new East Baton Rouge Parish Library director said of the 1.9-million-item, 540-employee system he took over on Monday. “It’s not perfect, there are always things we can do better.”

Watts, who spent the morning at the city-parish Human Resources department filling out forms and completing a drug and alcohol screen, said he was ready to get to work.

“We have major construction projects,” he said first when asked about his priorities. “I want to make sure those stay on track.”

Watts, who left the top job at the Mobile public library system in Alabama, was hired partly on the basis of his experience in overseeing library construction.

The East Baton Rouge Parish library system has four branches under construction or in the design phase: the Fairwood Branch Library on Old Hammond Highway, a new main library on Goodwood, the Rouzan branch library on Perkins, and the River Center Branch Library downtown.

The latter two have both engendered their share of controversy — Rouzan because of its association with developer Tommy Spinosa and the $21 million River Center branch library, which critics, including some on the Metro Council, have decried as excessively expensive.

Watts also said he plans to “work hard” to rebuild any broken relations from the departure of former Director David Farrar, who resigned in December 2011 after information became public about a 15-year-old Alabama criminal case in which he was accused of sexual abuse and impersonating a police officer.

“I am a totally different individual,” Watts said. “This is a new chapter.”

Watts said he plans to focus on becoming familiar with the parish’s library system, with its approximately 542 budgeted employees and $44 million budget, both more than double what he oversaw in Mobile.

“It’s a process,” Watts said. “It will be weeks before I have a good handle on it like I want to.”

Since he accepted the job, Watts said, East Baton Rouge Parish Library staff have sent him the minutes and video recordings of the Library Board of Control meetings so that he could begin to familiarize himself with the system.

One of the first non-construction projects Watts will oversee is the installation of a Radio-Frequency Identity tag system.

Watts, who oversaw the installation of a similar system in Mobile, said the system will save time on check-in and check-out, because items will not have to be individually scanned.

The system will also make it far easier to locate lost items, he said.

The library system has budgeted $1.2 million for the project, which will be split between equipment costs and paying a contractor to physically tag each of the library’s inventory 1.9 million items, said Assistant Library Director Mary Stein, who championed the RFID project last year, said.

Watts, who with his wife has been in Baton Rouge less than two weeks, said he had a positive initial impression of the city.

In addition to new class schedules, University of Alabama students are adjusting to campus parking changes upon their return from the holiday break, as various roads and portions of parking lots have been closed.

An initiative known as the Campus Master Plan, which was approved by the Board of Trustees in November, includes plans for a new 750-space parking deck near Riverside Residence Hall and adjustments to various parking lots and streets.

The Riverside parking deck began construction while students were away over the holiday and upon return, residents noticed that the construction had taken up precious parking spaces.

UA’s Housing and Residential Department emailed residents on Jan. 11, informing them the construction removed roughly 290 spaces on the west side of the Riverside East Yellow Residential surface lot. The emailed also stated 190 new spaces were available on the east side of the lot to “offset this loss of parking.”

Despite these accommodations, less parking is available for the 22,454 parking permits that were sold in fall 2012, said UA spokeswoman Cathy Andreen, and some students often find themselves hard-pressed locating an available spot.

Leah Horn, a freshman majoring in communicative disorders, enjoys the protected parking of the Ferguson Deck but has noticed a general decrease in available spaces.

“It has become a lot harder to find a spot in that deck because so many people who normally park elsewhere have had to move because of the construction,” Horn said. “I feel that it might have been wiser to wait until the summer since it affects a large number of students.”

Although parking is currently limited, the Riverside parking deck will eventually provide more parking for the rapidly increasing number of students who live and drive on campus.

“Parking in the Riverside lot has definitely been a problem,” Matthew Warren, a freshman majoring in aerospace engineering, said. “The addition of the new deck will definitely help.”

Other changes made to parking spaces on campus include the closing of the South Rose Reserve lot, the SEC Reserve lot and the northern half of the South Ferguson lot. Barnwell lot is now only available to those with an orange residential parking pass.

In addition to the several parking lots undergoing adjustments, 7th Avenue and Margaret Drive have also been changed.

Seventh Avenue is now closed to through traffic and parking due to construction in the area. A new gate has been installed where Margaret Drive connects to Capstone Drive behind Gorgas Library.

Access to the gate is only available for faculty, staff and those with a UA disability permit. The gate can be opened by swiping an ACT card or purchasing an RFID tag for $10 to open it remotely. The gate will go up at 4:30 p.m. every weekday and will remain closed until 6 a.m. It will be open around the clock on weekends.

Along with the new gate, two spaces to the right of Margaret Drive have been converted to a turn-around area. Chris D’Esposito, assistant director of parking services, said the gate was constructed to create a cleaner flow of traffic.