text:
PDF files on the web are
sometimes annoying and very often unnecessary. But when they aren't either of those things, we need to make them accessible for the same reasons we make other web content accessible.
Contrary to popular opinion – and also contrary to quasi-judicial claims in some places – PDF documents can be no less accessible than HTML. While this may be a shocking revelation, it is nonetheless true. This article will explain how PDF does and does not support accessibility.
- Most PDFs on the web should be HTML.
- Some documents really should be PDFs.
- You can add XML-like tags to give structure to a PDF.
- Tags weren't available until a recent upgrade to the PDF file format.
Most screen readers in common use can read PDFs.
- Screen readers had to be upgraded to understand tags.
- Screen readers have been continuously updated throughout their history, and even today some screen readers cannot handle parts of the HTML spec.
- Even an untagged PDF can be accessible if you're using the right technology.
- Posting a PDF online with no HTML alternative does not automatically constitute discrimination.
Let me dedicate this discussion to two nations that struggle under the yoke of lies and misunderstandings concerning PDF accessibility.
First, to the people of Australia, whose federal human-rights body, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC), takes the official position that posting a document online only as a PDF is inaccessible, hence a violation of the Disability Discrimination Act.
I learned this the hard way from Bruce Maguire. He vanquished Juan Antonio Samaranch in a hearing with that selfsame HREOC over the inaccessibility of the Sydney Olympics website, and he now works for the HREOC. Maguire monologuized endlessly about the topic when I met him in 2004. When I got a word in edgewise, Maguire was able to agree, as most of us will, that HTML is the preferred format, but he also suggested Microsoft Word as an alternative to PDF. This may tell you all you need to know about HREOC's understanding of accessibility and interoperability.
I told Maguire then and I'm telling everyone now: Don't believe the HREOC if they come after you claiming your PDFs are inaccessible, hence illegal. If you created your PDFs incorrectly, HREOC may be right, but only sometimes, and there are many cases where your PDFs may be just fine.
If you get hauled in front of HREOC for "illegal, inaccessible" PDFs, consider this article a case for the case for the defense, to paraphrase Christopher Hitchens. (See discussion below.)
Second, to the people of Canada, where the federal government's guidelines for its own websites – known euphemistically as Common Look and Feel, and the source of great pain – state falsely that PDF is "not directly accessible to persons with (primarily) visual impairments" and that only "minimum version 2.1" should be used. Oddly, there is no such thing as a PDF version 2.1.
The Alliance for the Equality of Blind Canadians, a lobby group that definitely is not the Canadian National Institute "for" the Blind, passed a resolution at its 2005 annual meeting stating that "Portable Document Format (PDF) continues to provide barriers to blind, deaf-blind and partially sighted people and their enabling technologies; herefore, be it resolved that the AEBC advocate that PDF not be used as a standard for providing documents on all websites." Well, who was suggesting that in the first place?
A view of the landscape#section4
Let's begin at the beginning and discuss the entire landscape of PDF on the web before we learn what makes a PDF accessible or inaccessible.
The first thing to do with a PDF#section5
…is Google the URL. Seriously. Most of the time, Google does a half-decent job of making a PDF readable in HTML. Poor character encoding, ill-constructed multicolumn PDFs, and document security features can prevent Google from indexing a PDF at all, or doing so readably. Nonetheless, that's what I do first.
PDF is overused#section6
There are too many PDFs on the web. Most every PDF should be something other than PDF. Any simple text-and-graphics document that is typeset in a single column should be provided as an ordinary HTML+CSS+JavaScript web page. Really, I can't think of any exceptions for simple documents.
There aren't many categories of online document that really should be PDFs and nothing else. And the list has decreased by one in the last year, since presentation slides can now be adequately handled by Eric Meyer's S5 method. (Hence I have no excuse anymore for publishing my own presentation slides in PDF, so I'm going to stop.)
But if your document is one of the following, PDF may be fine:
- Footnoted, endnoted, or sidenoted, since there is no way to mark up any of those structures in HTML. (You can use a hack like
supfor the footnote reference, but there are no
sidenote, or even
noteelements. That hack may be adequate for simple footnoted documents, but try rendering David Foster Wallace's footnotes-within-footnotes in HTML 4.)
- An interactive form, since PDF interactivity can do more than HTML can. (Use with caution and only if HTML really cannot do what you want.) For examples, check Jeremy Tankard's order forms, especially for TypeBookOne (PDF).
- A multimedia presentation, since later versions of PDF can truly embed multimedia rather than simply refer to or call multimedia, as HTML does. (Same warning as above.) PDF multimedia can include captions and/or audio descriptions.
- Combined accessible and inaccessible versions. A typical case is a scan of a historical document that also includes live text. (You really need that live text. The Smoking Gun's scanned court documents wouldn't pass muster here.) Another example – one that is legal in Canada under a copyright exemption – is a sign-language translation inside or alongside a written text or audio recording.
- Custom-crafted solely for printing. I really mean that, and not a document so badly designed that people have no choice but to print it out because reading onscreen is so tedious. Your service-bureau files, if they are on the web at all, can stay PDFs.
- Designed for annotation and round-trip travel: If you're posting something to elicit comments, which are then sent back to you, PDF has useful structures that HTML doesn't.
- A type specimen, which are all but impossible to create in HTML, unless the specimen involved is a "typeface" like Arial.
- A sample of a format that cannot be rendered in a browser (e.g, Illustrator or Photoshop documents) or can only be rendered unsatisfactorily (CAD drawings where GIF and JPEG don't have enough resolution). (In theory you could use SVG for CAD, but SVG remains mostly theoretical, doesn't it?) This case also includes PDF files meant as samples of PDF files.
- A record of a document's state at a specific moment. In this context, PDF is useful as a preservation format even for HTML web pages.
- A document in a language whose script has no satisfactory support in web browsers. This example must be used with caution: In 2005, there aren't many "minority" languages that cannot be rendered in a browser. Perhaps this case must be limited to scripts that have not been encompassed by Unicode (of which there are several). This can also be a subset of the type-sample case if your PDF is meant as an illustration or documentation of the writing system used by a language.
- Mathematical, since even MathML cannot render certain notations.
- Documents with a legally restricted format, like U.S. tax forms.
- Documents with digital rights management, which everybody hates and which has likely accessibility barriers. (The use of 128-bit encryption with PDF is compatible with screen readers.)
- Multicolumnar, particularly if figures and illustrations are included, since multicolumn web layouts are a mere hack and are unreliable as a method of reproducing print layouts. (Your multicolumn document should be HTML if it is presented that way merely to save paper and it can work as a single column. It can be difficult to distinguish that case from a document that is structurally multicolumnar, and this category is somewhat iffy.)
So let me say the same thing one more time: If your document isn't one of those or isn't truly exceptional in some way, it's your responsibility to do what the rest of us did and learn how to use HTML, CSS, and JavaScript correctly. Use those technologies unless you have an airtight reason not to.
PDF is not Acrobat, or even Adobe#section7
Let's get something else out of the way: Acrobat isn't PDF and PDF isn't Acrobat. Many programs can display PDFs other than Acrobat. GSview is a popular choice and works on Windows, Mac, OS/2, and Linux. Other options:
- On Windows: Jaws PDF Editor (not the screen reader)
- On Mac OS X: Preview, GraphicConverter, Safari, and OmniGraffle
- On Linux or Unix: OpenOffice
- On PocketPC and Windows CE: Primer PDF Viewer
- On Symbian: PDF+
- On Amiga (!): Apdf
And many programs can create PDFs other than Acrobat. Nearly every application on Mac OS X can save a PDF, for example. Utilities to export to PDF without Acrobat on platforms like Windows and Linux are too numerous to mention, but sites like VersionTracker list them. Moreover, you don't even need application software to create a PDF; some elite developers directly write their own native PDF files.
Your Acrobat version number and the PDF file format version number are two different things. It may come as a surprise that PDF actually has a version number, but it does. There is no single "PDF" format any more than there's a single HTML format.
- The latest version of the Adobe PDF file format is Version 1.6 (released November 2004).
- Each new version has added a few features, many of them structural. PDF tags, which are rather important for accessibility, were added in PDF 1.4.
- PDF versions for archiving (PDF/A) and "exchange of print-ready pages" (PDF-X1a) are already ratified or in the process of ratification by standards bodies.
- There's a working group to define an "accessible" PDF format (I'm on it) and another for engineering.
The easiest way to keep things straight is to take the current Acrobat release number, subtract 1, and put the result after the decimal point. Acrobat 7 can read PDF 1.6 documents, for example.
Proprietary vs. open#section9
You can't make the categorical statement that PDF is "proprietary" and HTML is "open." The World Wide Web Consortium copyrights its specs, for example, though with reasonable usage terms. Adobe publishes its versions of the PDF format, and has done so since Version 1.3.
I've never understood the objection that Adobe could change the PDF format overnight and render your documents useless. That objection applies to the mysterious Microsoft Word file format, but not here. (Word's XML schemas have been published, but I'm not talking about those. Microsoft's PR apparatchiks in the U.S. and Canada promised to get back to me about the actual state of disclosure of the Word file format, but never did.) PDF specs are published, and any of your documents that comply with the published spec will remain unchanged when the spec is updated. Just as a document validated against HTML 3.2 remained unchanged after XHTML 1.1 came out, your PDF 1.4 documents (for example) will continue to work into the indefinite future.
The entire discussion of proprietary vs. open is bogus. The relevant distinction is between published and secret. PDF and HTML are both published formats. End of story.
Multiple formats need to be accessible#section10
The goal of the accessibility advocate is to improve accessibility for people with disabilities, period. We're not interested in making only HTML web pages accessible. The entirety of web content is our purview, and that includes formats like PDF and indeed Flash. (Same goes for multimedia.)
To draw a historical analogy, when we in Canada and the U.S. managed to get one or two open-captioned TV shows on the air in the 1970s, we didn't stop there. We invented a closed-captioning system that could be applied to all programs (and the Europeans reused their existing teletext system for the same purpose). Then we made sure that home videos and laserdiscs (remember those?) were captioned. Then we started releasing a very few prints of open-captioned movies.
Then we figured out a way to add audio descriptions for the blind to television programs. Then we hacked a method to produce described home videos. Then we developed closed-captioning and -description systems for first-run movies (and new systems for open captioning there). Then we used closed captions, subpictures, and audio tracks to make DVDs accessible. Then we developed methods to caption and describe online video. We kept up with technology and made each new format accessible.
Even if you never create PDFs yourself, I'm sure you will admit that it is necessary for this widespread format to be accessible for the same reasons we made the widespread format of HTML accessible.
We're not just talking about blind people#section11
And keep in mind that accessibility is not about making things work fine for blind people and no one else. Everybody falls into that trap at one time or another – the Web Accessibility Initiative included. In PDF accessibility, notable additional groups include deaf and hard-of-hearing users and people with learning disabilities. Motor or dexterity impairment becomes an issue in scrolling a PDF.
Keep this in mind the next time someone complains that a certain PDF is inaccessible because he or she couldn't get it to work with a certain version of Jaws. We're not working just for you.
Content vs. user agent#section12
To finish this preliminary discussion, we need to understand the interaction between content and "user agents," the latter being a term for browsers, media players, and other devices that present content to the user. As web authors, we're so concerned with HTML and CSS that we either forget the role of the user agent completely – or we forget it until it bites us in the arse, as with CSS bugs in browsers. We tend not to notice the fact that web content is (in almost all cases) rendered by a browser; the user agent becomes invisible.
But because we have to switch to another program most of the time to read a PDF, we are suddenly reminded that a user agent is actually in play. This, too, is a source of confusion between Acrobat and PDF. The interaction of user agent and PDF content is as important as it is with HTML, as we'll see; it's just that we're more conscious of that interaction.
The complaint that you have to use a "special program" to read a PDF document is bogus. You're already using a special program to read an HTML document. It's just that you use that program so much it no longer seems special.
Tags and structure#section13
As with HTML, what makes PDFs "robust," reformattable, and otherwise accessible to many people with disabilities is structure. An unstructured data format like a JPEG picture is hard to make accessible, at least to a blind person, but wrap it in the HTML structure of an
img element and suddenly accessibility becomes a real option.
A PDF is a database of different data types. You can include a wide range of text, graphics, and multimedia formats inside a PDF, a fact that led to a common misunderstanding that PDFs are glorified pictures. (They certainly can be, but they aren't necessarily.) There really was no such thing as a structure to PDF until tags were introduced in PDF 1.4. It is OK to call them tags and not elements.
PDF tags are XML-like and will be immediately understandable to anyone with HTML knowledge. Many tags are functionally equivalent to analogues in HTML, such as
P, headings (including a generic, unnumbered
Heading element), and
Figure (image). But some of those tags have more features than their analogues in HTML. For images, you've got three levels of replacement text – "actual text," useful for text rendered as an image, a drop capital, or an illuminated manuscript; "alternate text," exactly as in HTML; and "title," also as in HTML. You can and still should declare a language for your PDF document, just as with HTML.
PDF tags are extensible and you can create your own. However, there's a predefined set.
A key difference here is that you cannot just fire up a text editor to add tags to your document, as you can with (X)HTML. Currently, you need to use application software, very much including Acrobat, to add the tags; because PDF is a binary format, that is unlikely to change.
As with semantic HTML, a tagged PDF can be reused and reformatted, since the application software knows what you meant by the data in the document. It knows that this text is a headline and this other text is a paragraph, so the software can, for example, reflow your text from a two-column to a single-column document. Reflow turns your multicolumn PDF into a zoom layout.
In general, we can say that a PDF is probably accessible if it is tagged. As with HTML, you can tag things improperly or unsemantically, though there is no concept of valid tagging with PDF. The mere presence of tags does not guarantee accessibility, because you might be using them wrong, but the absence of tags guarantees that the PDF itself is not accessible. Note the emphasis on itself; this is not the end of the story.
The user agent's job#section14
Here is where the user agent comes in. Just as web browsers have had to be engineered, at vast effort and expense, to cope with tag-soup HTML, Acrobat in particular has had to be engineered to cope with real-world PDFs. It's a bigger problem, since few PDFs are tagged and the free-form database structure of PDF lacks even the quasi-structure of tag-soup HTML.
In this case, the user agent overcomes the inaccessibility of the content, and that's how it should be even with HTML: The entire chain from author to reader has to be accessible, and any link in the chain can take up the slack. In accordance with the classic advice to be strict in what you produce and lenient in what you accept, if the PDF author creates inaccessible content, the reader software should try to fix it.
- Acrobat versions since 4.05 (with a Windows-only plug-in) have been at least adequately competent some of the time in making "inaccessible" PDFs functionally accessible.
- Acrobat 5 and later can infer a reading order and reflow text.
- Acrobat 6 and later can read text out loud on Windows and Macintosh, functioning as a de facto screen reader.
Note that this discussion mostly relates to blind or learning-disabled readers. A deaf person might just read the document with no trouble. Mobility or dexterity impairment is also involved here; later Acrobat versions can autoscroll a document without having to tediously click or actuate a scrollbar using your slow adaptive technology.
Thus it is impossible to state that even an untagged PDF is inaccessible. Acrobat (or some other program) may be able to use artificial intelligence to hack its way through a document to make it adequately accessible. If someone complains that your PDF isn't accessible, you need to ask them what program they're using to read it. Given that Adobe Reader (né Acrobat Reader) is free for Windows, Mac OS, and Linux and has all the accessibility features listed above, and is, moreover, compatible with many screen readers, it is a bit of a stretch to say that an untagged PDF could not possibly be read accessibly. Some PDFs will be inaccessible even with a really good reading program, but many will work adequately well.
Screen readers#section15
Another recurring complaint in PDF accessibility – also bogus – is that screen readers either cannot handle PDFs or require costly upgrades to handle them.
All leading screen readers in use on Windows can read PDFs, including Jaws, Window-Eyes, IBM Home Page Reader, and Hal.
Remember Bruce Maguire? His presentation at the Web Essentials 2004 conference in Sydney – in whose lunchroom he and I talked – stated the following:
The PDF format has become widely used for making documents available on Web pages. Despite considerable work done by Adobe, PDF remains a relatively inaccessible format to people who are blind or vision-impaired. Software exists to provide some access to the text of some PDF documents, but for a PDF document to be accessible to this software, it must be prepared in accordance with the guidelines that Adobe have developed. Even when these guidelines are followed (and there are 32 pages of them), the resulting document will only be accessible to those people who have the required software and the skills to use it. Many blind or vision-impaired people do not have the financial freedom to spend the $1,000+ typically required to upgrade their screen-reader software to take advantage of the latest accessibility features. Requiring a user to upgrade to this extent in order to read a standard document is like designing Web content presentation in such a way that most people will have to buy a new computer in order to read it. Clearly, this is not a reasonable approach to the discharge of a government's social responsibility to provide relevant information to its citizens. In any case, some of the PDAs used by blind people have no facilities for accessing PDF files.
Let's unpack these objections.
- Preparing PDFs "in accordance with the guidelines that Adobe has developed" is in no way different from preparing HTML pages in accordance with the guidelines the W3C has developed. (Want to print those out? It's a 34-page PDF.)
- It's not like PDFs are the only item on your computer for which you require software and skills. You require both of those to surf the web and use HTML pages.
- It's false to claim that blind people are "typically required" to pay "$1,000+" to upgrade their screen readers. Some devices that can read PDFs aloud are free, like Adobe Reader. Nobody is requiring an expensive software upgrade.
- Let's look at the upgrade prices for Windows screen readers. Assumptions: All prices in U.S. dollars; you already own a copy of a screen reader that cannot read PDFs (increasingly unlikely).
- A Jaws for Windows Software Maintenance Agreement gives you the two subsequent releases for $180 or $260. Hence an upgrade to a PDF-capable version might be "free" under this plan.
- A similar scheme provides for three upgrades of Window-Eyes for $299.
- Upgrading Home Page Reader from any Version 2.5 or 3 release to Version 3.04 is free. Otherwise you buy the whole package again for a discounted price of $79.
- Upgrading from V5 to V6 of Hal costs $160 or $220.
- "PDAs used by blind people" need to be upgraded if they don't understand PDF. Essentially, this objection boils down to "if it doesn't work with what I've already got, it doesn't work, period." I guess time does not march on for these people. In that case, I hope you're enjoying HTML 2.0 and your Geocities homepage.
The assumption seems to be that blind people only ever or only can or only must use Windows, and, as we all know, Windows screen readers are overpriced. Well, yes, they are, but you the blind person have many options now for computer accessibility.
Of course you may have to update your Windows screen reader and of course that might cost you money. You can't complain that PDF is inaccessible (as it was for many years) and then act as though the problem hasn't been addressed. Adobe rewrote the PDF spec to include tagging for accessibility, and, just as with any improved technology, your screen reader had to be upgraded to handle features that never existed before. You asked for something new and you need something new to make it work.
Most of the time when I run across this complaint, it strikes me as a peevish attempt to cling to the discredited idea that PDF isn't accessible and Adobe (in particular) doesn't care about the problem. Really, we need these complainers to grow up and face facts. You can't ask for a format to be upgraded to include accessibility and then complain that your own software has to be upgraded.
If you don't want to fork over the money for a Windows screen reader, you can use Mac or Linux. VoiceOver on Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger can read PDF 1.5 files and earlier, though not always very well. The Sun accessibility package for Linux (part of Solaris 10), which is free of charge, includes built-in screen reading. There's now a version of Adobe Reader 7 for Linux, though it doesn't have speech output.
If you're really concerned about cost, install the free Linux software or install Tiger on a used Mac. (Actually, a new Mac Mini without monitor costs less than a new license for Jaws.) If you think that Windows-screen-reader makers are overcharging, complain to the makers or vote with your feet. The actual issue – PDF accessibility – is being handled.
Let's be consistent about screen-reader flaws#section16
Also, if you're going to complain about how long it's taking screen readers to handle PDF, even though that problem is behind us, let's look at how well screen readers handle HTML.
The reality is that HTML is a stable standard that screen readers have had a long time to get right. (HTML 4.01 was published in 1999, XHTML 1.0 in 2000 [revised 2002], XHTML 1.1 in 2001.) But in reality, screen readers are still catching up. How is this different from PDF support? It isn't, except in one way: It's worse, because HTML has been around longer. PDF support went from nothing to pretty good in the space of two years, while screen readers are still moping along barely able to handle the full HTML spec.
If you're trying to suggest that the combination of PDF-plus-screen-reader is a problem, what happens if HTML-plus-screen-reader is also a problem? The complaint that screen readers have trouble with PDF and no trouble with HTML is false both ways. Why don't we hear any complaints about having to upgrade screen readers to handle HTML?
Let's look at the evidence.
|HTML support added
|HTML support added
|HTML support added
|HTML support added
|4.0 (apparently)
|HTML support added
|HTML support added
- IBM and GW Micro have a habit of ritually destroying release notes for previous versions when new ones come out. Here, Window-Eyes release notes were gathered mostly through Internet Archive documents. A review of HPR 2.5 was used.
- Jaws 5.0 is not listed above. It was documented only in rambling audio files (14 MB
.exe). Apparently it added support for lists and
blockquote(used for "indentation," the recordings tell us).
- HTML support in Hal is difficult to ascertain even after Dolphin Computer Access sent me the various release notes. Version 6.51 fixed a Flash problem and a problem with an offscreen-positioned skip-navigation link (marginally relevant to spec support); version 6.03 announced, hence recognized, links, frames and headings, also
acronym, and
So you see, HTML support in screen readers has evolved and is still evolving. But all of a sudden when screen readers had to be upgraded to handle PDF, some critics pretended that such upgrades were unreasonable and unique. You've been upgrading your screen readers all along just to handle HTML documents using specifications that are up to six years old.
Authoring tools#section17
Where PDF accessibility falls down embarrassingly is with "authoring tools," the software used to create PDFs. Only a few programs can natively create a tagged PDF file, including InDesign; PageMaker 7.0 (!); FrameMaker 6.0 and later; and Microsoft Office with an Adobe export plug-in (Office 2000 and later only, Windows only). Products that use PDFlib 6.0 and later can produce tagged PDFs. There may be a few other minor utilities here and there.
The average person, however, will be faced with touching up an untagged or poorly-tagged original. You pretty much have no choice but to use the tagging function built into Adobe Acrobat (the full version, not just the Reader, and for some functions you need the Pro version). There are already a few not-very-helpful tutorials on tagging with Acrobat, and, at the risk of disappointing my readers, I'm not going to write another one, as life is too short. However, the basics of what you have to do are easy to state:
- Open your PDF.
- The Description pane of the Document Properties screen (File menu) will tell you if the document is tagged or not.
- If it isn't, dismiss that screen. Go to the Advanced menu and choose Accessibility → Add Tags to Document.
- Run a full accessibility check from that same menu.
- If the checker reports any problems, open the little-known Tags palette (View → Navigation Tabs → Tags).Use the disclosure triangles to step through your document's new tag structure. You're better off if you select Highlight Content from the palette's Options menu, as Acrobat will then draw a hard-to-see border around the object whose tag you select.
To handle the most common problems:
- If Acrobat complains that your document lacks a language specification, find the topmost tag in your document (immediately within the self-referential Tags tag). Right- or Ctrl-click it and select Properties. Select a language from the pop-up menu in the Language field, or type your own two-letter language code.
- For images lacking a text equivalent, do something similar, except you have to manually locate the Figure element that lacks the text equivalent. Context-click the Figure, select Properties, and fill in Alternate Text (exactly like
altin HTML) or Actual Text (for a picture of text).
(There is a semi-automated way to find all Figures without text equivalents. If you run Advanced → Accessibility → Full Check and select "alternate descriptions are provided," Acrobat will find all the figures without text equivalents and provide you links to them in its report.)
- A document from a printed source may contain "artifacts" like headers and footers that you never want screen-reader users to hear. You can context-click on those items (which may be deemed
P, or something else) and Create Artifact, which will cause Acrobat and compliant screen readers to ignore them when voicing. (You can also use the Touch-Up Reading Order tool to select the artifact on the actual page and mark it as Background.)
If this task seems tedious, it is, and it's also quite inaccessible to many people with disabilities. Remember, we are not working toward a web in which nondisabled people create content for disabled people; people with disabilities must also be creators.
Acrobat is an unusual program in that it must arguably comply both with the Authoring Tools Accessibility Guidelines and with the User Agent Accessibility Guidelines, because you can create and view content using Acrobat. (And PDFs themselves are subject to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines; they will be covered in WCAG 2.0, which is expected to be technology-neutral.) Acrobat and PDF are not fully compliant with any of those guidelines, but few things are – and, when it comes to ATAG, nothing is.
PDF accessibility is not as straightforward as HTML accessibility. But we need to stand up to the untruths that are spoken about PDF, especially since many of those untruths come from authorities with the power to find authors guilty of discrimination.
PDF accessibility is OK some of the time when it's handled by competent authors with what few tools are available. All of those components need improvement, but let's not pretend we don't already have the power to create accessible PDFs. We do.
- Jacques Distler
- Andy Dulson
- Loretta Guarino Reid
- Phill Jenkins
- Greg Pisocky
- Ted Padova


text:
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The Need for Reflection
The need for reflection struck me again the other day as I was waiting on a friend for lunch. The restaurant was quiet, and for the first time in days, I felt like I had a few minutes of unscheduled time. I paused and just started thinking about the week. It wasn't long until I found myself taking a few notes, reflecting on a few interactions across the week, and planning a few next steps. Honestly, I was amazed at what had been accomplished in less than ten minutes as my friend entered the restaurant and joined me.
It seems in our world, especially in our teaching worlds, it's hard to find time to pause and reflect. As teachers, our lists remain long so we move from one task to another. As teachers, it can be a challenge to pause when we are busy working alongside young students with little break in our day. I'm going to be so bold as to say I think we even feel guilty when we take the time to pause and reflect. We are always on a path of doing.
That day at the restaurant I don't think I would have paused had I not been given a few unexpected minutes. We talk all the time about reflection; we understand its power, yet we rarely carve time to pause.
Collaborative Conversations
As I work alongside instructional coaches and teachers, I'm continually struck by the power of pausing to reflect. Often in our side-by-side work with colleagues, we do the work inside the classroom; because of time constraints, we settle for moments of demonstration teaching, observation, or quick touches of learning, but it is the deep dive into focused conversation that helps us to grow in our practice. It is the small reflective conversations before and after our time together we struggle to make the time to have, yet it is these very conversations that lift our work.
While I am trying to be more disciplined about taking the time for personal reflection, it is when I am reflecting with a colleague that I learn the most. It is in these conversations where new thinking pushes against what I understand. It is in these conversations that my words are sent back to me in a way that brings fresh understanding. It is in these conversations I find new perspectives. It is in these conversations that I find strength for next steps.
As I sit beside coaches and teachers, I've come to realize that the short pre and post conversations we often skip, are truly a gift. As I observe collaborative conversations I'm always struck by what both people take away after a few minutes in reflective conversation. Our work is too complex to do it alone.
Whether it is sitting quietly for ten minutes or finding a colleague to bounce around a few ideas, I'm trying to find ten minutes each day for a bit of reflection. Instead of thinking about it as a something I have to do, I know it is a gift I give to myself.
A Bit More About Reflection
Watch It:
- Quit Wearing Busy Like a Badge by John Spencer
Read It:
- The Missing Key to Productivity is Reflection by Jocelyn K. Glei
- White Space: Why It Matters in Our Life by Brian Gardner
Live It:
- Take time to reflect (find the white space in your day to think, time to journal, talk with a friend)
- Grab your favorite notebook (or app)
- Apps for written reflection: Google, Google Keep, Evernote (organize notebooks, tag, type, audio, insert images, and you can write --- but that feature is still very limited), Noteshelf App (set up notebooks with paper-like turns, write, type, insert images), Notability (for fans of handwriting.)
- Daily Habits (set reminders for your reflection time...)


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Being the first "manufacturing" type person on the team, I showed up at Texaco Towers on my first day (August 17, 1981) at 7:30am. Rod showed up about 8:30 and said "who are you". After talking a while he showed me across the hall to my work space, pointed to a bean bag chair, and said "how's that?". Then the desk arrived.
Then George Crow, Burrell Smith and Dan Kotke found out I was there to help and the requests for sourcing started and didn't stop for the next 3 years.


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Welcome to our hotel
The Historic Residence Hotel Cimabue has twenty two gracious and exclusive rooms which offer, through their large 18th century windows, splendid peeks of antique Florence like that of the 13th century stone building, once the hospital of Bonifazio Lupi, in front of the Hotel, or the lovely renaissance Palazzo Pandolfini, and those beside it.
The Hotel is also found only a short walk away from the Gallery Dell'Accademia, Museum of San Marco, the Cupola Brunelleschi and the Giotto Bell Tower.
Internally, Florence Hotel Cimabue reveals attention and care to all details and particularities, highlighting its aim to make the clients' stay pleasurable and relaxing, offering, at the same time,spacious and charming environments.
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Have you ever Skip to the Details:
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The Obama administration's belated attempt to address the looming employment crisis — after three years focused largely on reviving Wall Street, redoing health care and creating a "green" economy — reflects not only ineptitude but a deeper crisis of what is best understood as the "gentry presidency."
Unlike previous Democratic presidents, including John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton, President Barack Obama's base primarily lies not with the working and middle classes, who would have demanded effective job action, but with the rising power of the post-industrial castes, who have largely continued to flourish even through the current economic maelstrom.
From the beginning, Obama has been nurtured and supported by an array of influential leaders in finance, technology and real estate who supported his rise. In the run-up to his nomination, he attracted more money from Wall Street than Hillary Clinton, New York's senator. Later, he pummeled the Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), by a wide margin among financiers.
To be sure, Obama's ground game relied on organized labor, particularly public-sector unions, African-Americans, Latinos and progressive activists. But these groups have not emerged stronger from his three years in office.
Instead, the major winners of the Obama years have been the big nonprofits, venture capitalists and, most obviously, the financial aristocracy. These have all benefited from the Ben Bernanke-Timothy Geithner — previously the Bernanke-Henry Paulson — policy of cheap money and near zero-interest rates, which have depressed the savings of the middle classes but served as a major boon to Wall Street. This has benefited mostly the wealthiest 1 percent, which owns some 40 percent of equities and 60 percent of financial securities.
This Wall Street-first approach makes Reaganite "trickle down" look like a populist torrent. Glimmers of reality are beginning to dawn on more perceptive progressive analysts, like Kevin Drum of Mother Jones, who accuses the Democrats under Obama of abandoning "the middle class in favor of the rich." The Democrats, grouses the reliably partisan but perceptive Harold Meyerson, should be known as "Bankers R Us."
To be sure, some parts of the old progressive coalition, such as African-Americans, whose prospects have declined markedly under Obama, will most likely remain loyal to the president. Many other working- and middle-class voters, including Latinos and young people, groups particularly hard hit, may not be ready to bolt en masse for the GOP. But their lessened enthusiasm to participate in either the campaign or to vote could threaten the White House next year.
These developments, as Marxists might put it, reflect the fundamental contradictions of gentry liberalism. Essentially, gentry liberalism reflects the coalescing interests among the financial, technological and academic upper strata. For these people, the Great Recession was brief and ended long ago. All depend heavily on high stock prices to maintain their wealth. Their interest in the overall U.S. economy — particularly the Main Street grass roots — has become ever more tenuous with their increasing ability to shift assets to East Asia and other developing country hot spots.
These prerogatives have been neatly protected under Obama. In the past, administrations let corporate scofflaws, like the savings and loan companies, collapse. Some were sent to jail.
But this time, the Wall Street elites have been allowed to skate through their own self-created crisis with astounding agility. Not only have they stayed out of the slammer, but they have been enjoying the best of times.
This may have also been good news for Manhattan and San Francisco real estate and luxury retail — Tiffany profits were up 25 percent in the past quarter. Silicon Valley venture capitalists, in particular, have been lavished with access to cheap government loans and incentives — as demonstrated by the recent revelations about solar manufacturer Solyndra — to promote their attempted expansion into the ballyhooed "green economy."
The essential problem of gentryism, however, is that it fails to address the fundamental economic needs of the vast majority. It is also tied to policy prescriptions that either fail to spur broad-based growth or, in some cases, hinder it.
For one thing, by concentrating wealth at the top, the gentry approach has depressed entrepreneurialism among the vast middle and working classes. In contrast to past "recoveries," the rate of new start-ups has slowed considerably. The health of existing small business remains feeble, notes the National Federation of Independent Business.
Other initiatives have slowed potential growth, particularly the threat of new draconian environmental regulations. Fossil-fuel development, for example, represents one of the best opportunities for new, high-wage employment for blue- and white-collar workers. In contrast, the massive expenditures of public money on "green jobs" has turned out to be less than effective in creating blue-collar employment.
Equally revealing has been the pathetic performance of states that most fully embraced gentryism. California, an epicenter of the gentry economy, suffers the second-worst unemployment and lowest new business formation rates among all the states. Illinois lost more jobs in August than any other state. The bluest places — New York City and California — also tend to be the most unequal — and places where the middle class is fleeing.
Whatever the failings of ungentrified Texas — ranging from a too-tattered social safety net and too many low-paying jobs — the rate of employment growth, including the high-tech sector, dwarfs that of key blue states, including California. Denizens of California, New York and other Obama bastions are voting for the Lone Star state with their feet.
You don't have to be a fan of Gov. Rick Perry to acknowledge Texas's relative success compared with the gentry bastions.
Overall, gentry rule has fostered a sense throughout the American public of national decline and diminishing personal expectations. Small property ownership, the key to a democratic capitalist society, is fraying. Wall Street's Morgan Stanley, for example, having helped create the housing crisis, now talks boldly of a "rentership" society.
This would extend the dominion of Wall Street and large landowners, like feudal lords, over the last redoubts of small property owners.
Clearly, as even many on the left now acknowledge, we need a bold and radical break with gentry politics. Bernanke-ism is absurd — given that, under today's conditions, a federally sponsored Wall Street boom does not assure prosperity for most. Perhaps it is time to focus instead on how to shift capital and incentives to the grass-roots economy.
One possible reform would be a flat, or flatter, income tax that eliminates the patently unjust lower rates for capital gains and eliminates dodges for the ultra-rich, while creating greater incentives to individual grass-roots wealth creation. The Obama payroll tax cut represents a small, grudging step in this direction, but may well be too little, too late.
Such a radical break would most likely cause mass consternation in Washington — as both parties rally to save their friends on Wall Street and a host of special tax breaks that enrich their campaign coffers. Many big money conservatives would shoot back with capitalist indignation while Democrats like Wall Street's consigliere Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) would come up with more elegant reasons to protect their Wall Street backers.
But such a suggestion from Obama might show his willingness to end a vassalage to the patrician class that is sinking both the economy and his own reelection chances.
This piece originally appeared at Politico.
Joel Kotkin is executive editor of NewGeography.com and is a distinguished presidential fellow in urban futures at Chapman University, and an adjunct fellow of the Legatum Institute in London. He is author of The City: A Global History. His newest book is The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050, released in February, 2010.
Photo by flickr user Uggaboy


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OPINION CONTRIBUTOR: A vote for an 'all-of-the-above' energy policy
The results of the 2012 elections represent a paradigm shift in U.S. energy policy.
As the 18th-century English diarist Samuel Johnson said, "the prospect of a hanging concentrates the mind wonderfully." In the energy field, it was the oil shocks of the 1970s that first focused our attention on the peril of banking our future on fossil fuels alone.
Since then, policy makers, industry leaders and consumers have accelerated development of all energy sources, such as wind power, that help reduce our dependence on foreign energy, create new jobs that can't be outsourced, and boost local economies.
The result? Voters in last week's elections endorsed candidates who support an "all-of-the-above" energy policy that promotes a diversified portfolio of energy resources, specifically wind energy and the extension of its primary federal incentive, the Production Tax Credit (PTC).
At the outset of the 2012 presidential campaign, the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) partnered with POLITICO to convene an event series called "Energy and the Presidency." We brought lawmakers, energy experts and key reporters together to discuss how Americans benefit from an all-of-the-above energy strategy.
We convened these panels in Washington, D.C.; in Iowa as the caucus season got underway; and at the Republican and Democratic National Conventions, to ensure that energy policy was discussed at the highest level of the current policy debate. And unlike so much of what we heard and read about during the election, these discussions have been truly bipartisan.
The wind industry's primary incentive, the Production Tax Credit (PTC), has attracted as much support from both congressional Republicans and Democrats as any tax policy that's come before Congress this year. As former Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said at the Energy and the Presidency panel at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, "global clean energy is the future, and politics is not going to stop that."
Gov. Richardson shared some statistics to support this view. "By 2016, the global wind market will top $93.1 billion," he said. "Since 2006, 36 percent of new electric capacity in the U.S. has come from wind energy. And the cost of wind is expected to fall 12 percent in the next 5 years."
That's not politics—those are facts. It's no wonder so many leaders on both sides of the aisle support vital steps towards energy and economic security such as extending the PTC.
Among the dozens of Republican wind champions reelected to Congress, for example, were outspoken House supporters Reps. Dave Reichert (R-Wash.), Steve King and Tom Latham (R-Iowa), and Senator-elect Dean Heller (R-Nev.).
Independent Angus King, a wind project developer since leaving the governorship in Maine, won his race for the open Senate seat there.
Swing states with numerous wind farms as well as wind factories went for President Obama, whose campaign took the position that the wind energy Production Tax Credit should be extended. They included Iowa and Colorado — where layoffs have struck wind energy factories because of uncertainty over when Congress will address the tax credit, which expires at the end of this year — and Michigan and Ohio, states important to the wind energy supply chain which also have untapped wind resources under development.
Another key backer of wind energy is Governor Terry Branstad (R-Iowa). At the Energy and the Presidency panel during the Iowa caucuses, Branstad recalled that in 1983 he signed the first renewable energy standard into law, setting a precedent that has now been followed by 28 other states and the District of Columbia.
"Renewable energy is real important to our state," Branstad told us. "We're proud to be the leader in wind energy. Wind energy has opened up some great new manufacturing opportunities and also great job opportunities not only in the building of wind farms but also in maintenance."
As everyone knows who attended our POLITICO panels, or watched them streaming online, wind power can no longer be called "alternative," since it now is a mainstream source of American electricity.
That's why it's so important we don't turn back the clock on bipartisan support for investment in wind energy production. Why do so many Republicans and Democrats agree on extending the PTC? Because we all want the homegrown, affordable, clean and abundant energy that the power of wind offers. We also want the American wind energy jobs to continue to grow as they have over the past several years.
Congress this week embarks on a lame-duck session that will include action to renew the PTC until all energy incentives are on the table during the corporate tax reform debate expected next year. Failure to extend the PTC would cost 37,000 jobs immediately, and put the brakes on the progress America has made to diversity its electricity portfolio. Wind should not be the only energy source without any federal incentive, as it would be if the PTC is allowed to expire.
Elections are about choices, and it's clear that in 2012, the American people have chosen candidates who support renewable energy. We don't have to choose a single path towards our energy future. We can have it all — all of the above.
Denise Bode is the Chief Executive Officer of the American Wind Energy Association.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1112/83871.html#ixzz2CIQEjLDE


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As expected, the Bank of Canada has kept its benchmark interest rate at one per cent, but this morning's press release did include the hint at future rate hikes that many were hoping for. "Over time," the Bank said, "some modest withdrawal of monetary policy stimulus will likely be required." Some version of that statement had appeared in all of the BOC's major policy reports since April, but it suddenly disappeared in Governor Mark Carney's Oct. 15 speech, signaling that the Bank's position had become somehwat more dovish.
Notably, the Bank said it expects household debt to continue to rise and signaled for the first time that considerations over Canadian families' balance sheets will influence key monetary policy.
The Bank also said it expects inflation to rise to the its target of two per cent and economic growth to return to full capacity by the middle and the end of 2013 respectively.
Here's the full text of the release, with the key statements highlighted:
Ottawa, Ontario – The Bank of Canada today announced that it is maintaining its target for the overnight rate at 1 per cent. The Bank Rate is correspondingly 1 1/4 per cent and the deposit rate is 3/4 per cent.
The global economy has unfolded broadly as the Bank projected in its July Monetary Policy Report (MPR). The economic expansion in the United States is progressing at a gradual pace. Europe is in recession and recent indicators point to a continued contraction. In China and other major emerging economies, growth has slowed somewhat more than expected, though there are signs of stabilization around current growth rates. Notwithstanding the slowdown in global economic activity, prices for oil and other commodities produced in Canada have, on average, increased in recent months. Global financial conditions have improved, supported by aggressive policy actions of major central banks, but sentiment remains fragile.
In Canada, while global headwinds continue to restrain economic activity, domestic factors are supporting a moderate expansion. Following the recent period of below-potential growth, the economy is expected to pick up and return to full capacity by the end of 2013. The Bank continues to project that the expansion will be driven mainly by growth in consumption and business investment, reflecting very stimulative domestic financial conditions. Housing activity is expected to decline from historically high levels, while the household debt burden is expected to rise further before stabilizing by the end of the projection horizon. Canadian exports are projected to pick up gradually but remain below their pre-recession peak until the first half of 2014, reflecting weak foreign demand and ongoing competitiveness challenges. These challenges include the persistent strength of the Canadian dollar, which is being influenced by safe haven flows and spillovers from global monetary policy.
After taking into account revisions to the National Accounts, the Bank projects that the economy will grow by 2.2 per cent in 2012, 2.3 per cent in 2013 and 2.4 per cent in 2014.
Core inflation has been lower than expected in recent months, reflecting somewhat softer prices across a wide range of goods and services. Core inflation is expected to increase gradually over coming quarters, reaching 2 per cent by the middle of 2013 as the economy gradually absorbs the current small degree of slack, the growth of labour compensation remains moderate and inflation expectations stay well-anchored. Total CPI inflation has fallen noticeably below the 2 per cent target, as expected, and is projected to return to target by the end of 2013, somewhat later than previously anticipated.
Reflecting all of these factors, the Bank has decided to maintain the target for the overnight rate at 1 per cent. Over time, some modest withdrawal of monetary policy stimulus will likely be required, consistent with achieving the 2 per cent inflation target. The timing and degree of any such withdrawal will be weighed carefully against global and domestic developments, including the evolution of imbalances in the household sector.


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Read the full story here Web Link posted Thursday, October 20, 2011, 11:59 AM
Town Square
Atherton council votes 3-2 for library in park
Original post made on Oct 20, 2011
Read the full story here Web Link posted Thursday, October 20, 2011, 11:59 AM
Comments (34)
a resident of Atherton: other
on Oct 20, 2011 at 12:49 pm
Three hundred residents, the Park and Recreation Commission, and two council members wanted the council to survey the town before voting on a site location.
But three council members could not wait for that information. By one vote the park has been changed. The numbers have not been released as to how many Atherton residents actually use the library and how often they use the library.
a resident of another community
on Oct 20, 2011 at 12:56 pm
Holbrook Palmer Park was given to the Town to be a park, not a library. Geez the Little League wants a new baseball diamond and now a library I doubt it will feel like a park after everything is built out. I really enjoy going there to walk my dog, wonder if much pathway will be left.
a resident of Atherton: Lindenwood
on Oct 20, 2011 at 2:38 pm
Hopefully someone can post the exact language of the gift of the land by the Holbrook Palmer family to the Town.
a resident of Atherton: Lindenwood
on Oct 20, 2011 at 3:20 pm
Four former mayors have suggested the council survey the town first.
a resident of Atherton: Lindenwood
on Oct 20, 2011 at 4:43 pm
The proponents have clearly stated the new building in the Park is a new community center with abundant meeting rooms, 17 computer stations in a separate room and so forth. They say is that the old library is too small but why are libraries closing across the country as digital books become the new norm. The presentation in August made the point it needed to be larger because "people take up more room than books!" The subject they avoid is that the community center (aka library) will be mostly for people who do not live in Atherton. They have no idea how many people that might be just as they have no idea how many Atherton residents use it now.
From Atherton's General Plan in section 4.234 para B. "The Park is to be used for the benefit of the citizens of Atherton"
This should now be changed to "The Park and Community Center facilites should be designed and used for the benefit for all peoples who live in adjacent communities who will be able to enjoy the Park's open spaces, picnic tables, and manicured gardens while having access to computers, digital downloads and meeting spaces."
a resident of another community
on Oct 20, 2011 at 5:32 pm
atherton voter, sorry to be picky, but ebooks are not yet the new norm. Perhaps they shall be, but they're not currently. Since libraries need to server *everyone* in a community, that includes those who don't read ebooks, either by choice or circumstance. So many libraries are closing due to lack of funds, not because of ebooks. Either way, it's incredible sad. I am very happy to read about your town's controversy about the new library - because it means you will still have one!
As for the use of the community rooms by non-residents, is there a stipulation that one needs to be a city resident to use meeting rooms at neighboring libraries? I know it's common for non-residents to pay fees for use of neighboring cities amenities, including classes at rec centers and reserving park facilities. Perhaps that will be the case in Atherton, and will be good for the town coffers?
a resident of Atherton: Lindenwood
on Oct 20, 2011 at 6:01 pm
Thank you for your comments and of course digital ebooks are relatively new but has and will have a major impact on the size of libraries in the future (and it is now having a major impact on book publishing). What the Atherton Council has approved is a 11,000 square foot building replacing our existing library of about 5,000 square feet. The number of volumes will roughly triple but I could be in error on this. Lets say it will be a significant increase. However Atherton will always have a library and the question is of location.
The library will be part of the San Mateo County Library system and obviously anyone can use the library without charge. Atherton will not be able to gain revenue from individual users and perhaps even using rooms for library events. The other park facilities where they now gain revenue will be torn down for this new structure and it will
unlikely be a venue for weddings, receptions, and social events. Perhaps some revenue can be gained from rental of rooms to various affinity groups. The council members who voted for this placement hope to gain revenue for the Town by charging (probably over charging) rent for the overhead for operations and maintenance for the grounds etc.
As always the motive is usually based on 'follow the money"zcnE
a resident of another community
on Oct 20, 2011 at 6:31 pm
I'm confused. If this is a community center, is the extra footage of the library deemed library space? I've attended events at many libraries, but I don't know if the organizers pay a fee or not- maybe it depends on if they're a resident or nonresident?
It does seem sad that there wasn't a more comprehensive gathering of Atherton residents' views as to what they want.
As a county library user, I'll use your new library more if there are more books I can't get at MP library. I love Holbrook Palmer also, but I hope residents still have first dibs on the amenities.
Perhaps I'm too much of an optimist, but your town's already nice library program can perhaps be expanded when you have a bigger facility?
a resident of Atherton: Lindenwood
on Oct 20, 2011 at 7:30 pm
Hmmm,I guess there is much to explain in this effort by Atherton library advocates, and it is difficult to detail in a few sentences. The real description of the 11,000 sq ft building will be a library but in reality it has a huge community center component that fits a typical definition of a community place. The existing library has no meeting rooms and seven computer stations are put on the entrance floor. There will be no fee element for sure either in old or new building and no restriction on who can use it. Come one, come all. Holbrook Palmer Park is also open to anyone who wishes to use it in a casual way. However the fee part will come into play if you rent a room in the existing Main Building, Pavilion or host a wedding and reception. The new building will have limited revenue potential.
I am sure the Atherton Library program will be expanded when there is a new building and there will be more visitors. The problem lies in the purpose and intent of the donor of the Park and in the minds of most residents as it does not fit their vision to use this property this way and is and invasion their only open space land.
a resident of Atherton: West of Alameda
on Oct 20, 2011 at 8:46 pm
How arrogant!
200 signatures of lackadaisical Atherton residents is nothing to sneeze at. They have trouble getting that many voters in some elections. The Council Chamber was packed to the rafters, a reflection of the sentiment of a representative sample of residents.
Yet Widmer, Dobbie, and McKeithen dismiss the sentiment and vote against the will of the constituents!
I smell a RECALL ... long overdue.
It's time to get some residents on the Council who actually care about the Town, rather than their pet projects and their egos. I think this vote just woke the sleeping giant.
a resident of another community
on Oct 20, 2011 at 9:08 pm
Thank you, atherton voter, for all of the info. It's understandable if people are upset about how the park is used, given that it was a gift to the town. I appreciate you taking the time to explain it to me. As a lover of libraries, I've been trying to follow the issue a bit, but I know less about the park - except of course that it's a great place. I'm sorry that this is so frustrating for so many people.
a resident of Atherton: other
on Oct 21, 2011 at 2:14 pm
Why would the Town put a county library in a park that was donated to the town for the use of Atherton residents? The park is already fully utilized. Years ago Town Council denied the construction of two buildings in the park that were designated to hold a bonsai collection, and another to house an art collection. The preservation of open space was felt to be of primary importance.
Libraries have traditionally been part of a town center. Didi Fisher's request for a master plan to take into account all the town buildings is pertinent, and she has accumulated signatures that concur with her request. Town Council should heed her efforts.
a resident of Atherton: Lloyden Park
on Oct 21, 2011 at 4:56 pm
Someone pays the town $3,000.00 or more to use the facilities for a few hours and the council thinks this is not profitable. How?
a resident of Atherton: West Atherton
on Oct 21, 2011 at 6:58 pm
There is nothing wrong with constructing a "Community Center" in Holbrook Palmer Park. If it is designed by and in control of Atherton's residents and officials, it will function nicely in the spirit that the donor intended. Residents should have the privilege of using the facility for private events at market value for such a venue. It is absurd that existing areas have been rented out for private functions at a monetary loss to the city of Atherton. Who was in charge of allowing that to happen?!
There is something VERY wrong with moving a COUNTY Library complete with patrons, traffic and noise from surrounding communities into that same Community Center in a park bequeathed and intended for the exclusive use of Atherton residents. The Atherton Library should remain in its present location and be upgraded as needed. Reference materials and areas for quiet study are required from a library since many books and periodicals are available only by expensive purchase or subscription. The non-library functions (childrens programs and other noisy interferences with reading) should be moved to the new Community Center. It is unwise to combine these two functions, a Library and a Community Center, in H-P Park considering the donor's intent and the tranquility of the park.
Now and forever the elephant in the room is the residents' petition to let their voices be heard by survey on this subject. The arrogance of the three council-members who ignored and thus denied that request is intolerable. 3 over-ruling 300 is not a democracy.
a resident of Atherton: Lloyden Park
on Oct 22, 2011 at 6:28 am
Atherton already has three "Community Center" Buildings in the Park;
The Main House, Jennings Pavilion, and The Carriage House. There is no need to tear down The Main House to build a new community center. No need has been expressed.
Atherton already provides land for nine schools and seven thousand students. Those schools have libraries. There is no need for an expanded library for Atherton residents.
Menlo Park and Redwood City have wonderful libraries. There is no need for a third regional library so close to those two.
There is a need for open space and a peaceful park.
a resident of another community
on Oct 22, 2011 at 3:04 pm
As a non-resident who does enjoy the park, & been to many events there, I do wonder about the increased traffic into the park once this project is complete. What's great about the MP Library is that it's on the edge of the community center, so that the park & ponds can be enjoyed w/out big traffic worries. But due to the layout of Holbrook Palmer, a similar layout isn't likely?
a resident of Atherton: other
on Oct 22, 2011 at 6:01 pm
Open the gate from the Felton Gables neighborhood in Menlo Park. That way there will be fewer cars and more foot traffic. More parking problems for them, but that's OK with us.
a resident of Atherton: Lindenwood
on Oct 22, 2011 at 9:33 pm
Interesting series of challenges:
1 - the library fund is dedicated to being used for a library. What funds are going to be used for the community center portion of this building?
2 - what are the terms of the gift of the land regarding non-park uses?
3 - what are the terms of the gift of the land regarding use of the land by non-residents and how do those conflict with the County requirement that the library be open to anyone?
a resident of Atherton: Lindenwood
on Oct 23, 2011 at 6:07 am
Peter Carpenter asks some excellent questions and they certainly reveal that library funds be used to for community areas of the building may be against the fund restrictions on use. In the recommendation package to the Council they state the spaces can be used for such activities as bridge classes, knitting groups, museum lectures, cooking demonstrations, book clubs. Yes, right there in the center..oops excuse me, I meant to say library!.
The Holbrook-Palmer will can be obtained from the Town clerk under the freedom of information act but the wording of the will specifically as to use of specific type building use is rather loose and may be open to various interpretations. The Steering committee says they have engaged legal council and the opinion of a library in the park is that it is consistent with the intent of the will. The subject is covered in one sentence on page 11 of the package.
Web Link
The Town cannot legally restrict use of the Park to Atherton residents alone and, of course, that would include the library so it is open to all. In actual fact we are building a structure mainly for the benefit of non-Atherton use as well as further encouraging the use of the Park. Also by taking down the main house and pavilion we are removing an income stream from rental of the facilities in hard-pressed Atherton.
As stated in their publications the Library steering committee stated that, "When the task force looked at sites for the library, one of the strong considerations was that a library in the park would cause the park to become much more civic."
Mrs Palmer is rolling over in her grave!
a resident of Atherton: other
on Oct 23, 2011 at 6:29 am
Olive Palmer said Atherton must maintain the land in proper order and condition and in a manner suitable for a HIGH CLASS PUBLIC RECREATIONAL PARK.
Olive also said construction or use of a building in the park can only be for purposes consistent with the land being used as a public recreational park. Museums and auditoriums were specifically mentioned as acceptable edifices.
If the Town violates her stipulations for more than 30 days, the land goes to Stanford University. Stanford can use it or dispose of it free from all restrictions and limitations.
a resident of Atherton: Lindenwood
on Oct 23, 2011 at 8:33 am
Unfortunately I read a bit more in the ALBSC report to the Council and I can only shake my head.
Here is a particular quote that I cannot understand and it might be the latest in doublespeak language. Anyone knows what it might means?
"The ALBSC understands that locating our library in the park represents a change in public land use and recognizes that this change is consistent with park planning policy and public park land use." Huh?
Also referring back to Peter Carpenters question regarding the community center portion being supported by library funds this quote from the report also opens up a can or worms on this subject. Seems like they are really trying to solve all problems without the authority or charter to do so in behalf of the library system who will operate the library.
"The ALBSC understands that a new library in the park has a responsibility to support the community activities already taking place in the Main House."
Olive Palmer has reportedly sent a message back from the other side that she has fired the attorney who drafted her will and will now designate the ALBSC as her executor with authority to do whatever they want.
Web Link
a resident of Atherton: Lindenwood
on Oct 23, 2011 at 12:02 pm
Palo Alto restricts access to its Foothill Park to Palo Alto residents, why cannot Atherton do the same with Holbrook Palmer Park?
a resident of Atherton: Lindenwood
on Oct 23, 2011 at 12:48 pm
Peter asks another good question. Somehow Palo Alto has managed to pull the ladder up for resident only use. I wonder if Atherton has ever considered it as they pay for Holbrook Palmer out of largely property tax revenue and that seems to be the justification for Palo Alto and Foothill Park?
Here is a bit of history on Foothill Park:
Web Link
a resident of Atherton: Lindenwood
on Oct 23, 2011 at 2:05 pm
What would happen if a group of citizens qualified a ballot measure for an Atherton ordinance that stipulated that the use of Holbrook Palmer Park be restricted to Atherton residents and their guests?
If such an initiative passed clearly a county library could not be located in the Park.
a resident of Atherton: Lindenwood
on Oct 23, 2011 at 2:39 pm
Peter, that is a very interesting thought and one way to skin this cat.
The Council meeting of October 26th was just posted on this Almanac Town Square Forum and annotated as to the speaker. Councilman Carlson made an excellent presentation in which he pointed out that the current Atherton library fund is over $5 million dollars and is expected to grow to over $8 million dollars in 2015 all from property tax revenues and an increasing tax base. He throws out the idea of leaving the JPA library system and establishing Atherton's own library system where the monies paid for Atherton residents are more directly used for the benefit of the town residentsand not diluted by going into the county library system.
His main appealis for the need for a Master Plan study to look at all the Town facilities as a group both to efficiently use the land space available and to efficiently use building space without duplication. He feels the library issue should be studied as part of the larger town center requirements. A Special Meeting has been authorized as over 200 Atherton residents petitioned the town to call this meeting.
a resident of another community
on Oct 23, 2011 at 3:33 pm
You wealthy Athertonians didn't think of the Foothill Park scenario before all of this? That is pretty funny/sad. And Atherton is hard-pressed financially? What, you're a miniature version of Vallejo?
Riddle me this, batpeople: why all the snobbery about keeping the park to Athertonians? You mean - gasp! - that your monies are paying for others to use your facility? What, as if Athertonians don't use parks and amenities in other neighboring cities? You're a lot more like your status-seeking neighbor, Shallow Alto. Perhaps your armed butlers - er - police officers - can be charged with checking ID at the gate to the park. Oh, wait, that would require a modicum of competence - too much of a challenge for your police department.
a resident of Atherton: other
on Oct 24, 2011 at 8:23 am
The horse has already left the barn. McKeithen, Dobbie, and Widmar voted to build the library in the park last Wednesday. Rather than delay that vote till after the Special Meeting on a Facilities Master Plan, they took care of their interests.
a resident of Atherton: other
on Oct 25, 2011 at 9:17 am
I would suggest that many of you who wrote would be better off spending some time educating yourself as to the facts rather perpetuating misinformation and setting forth narrow-minded views.
As to Park & Rec's comment - the 300 signatures requested that a Master Plan be done, not a survey of whether the library should go into the Park. One might reasonably ask, if a Master Plan is so important, why didn't Ms. Fisher (former Mayor - isn't every council member?), a member of the Town Center task forces looking into the building of a new Town Center for years, require that a Master Plan be done as part of that much larger project? Why only now when a library might be going into the Park and the library committee has already stated on its own that it believes the Park Master Plan needs to be updated?
To Davena Gentry - Holbrook Palmer Park was given to the Town to be a high class Public Recreational Park. At the time the gift was being considered, the number one use envisioned by the residents of Atherton was a LIBRARY. Just where do wedding and corporate events fit into public recreation?
To Atherton Voter - "The new building in the Park is a new community center with abundant meeting rooms.... why are libraries closing across the country as digital books become the norm?" There is no indication that the new library would have anything more than one small meeting room, and perhaps not even that if the community did not want it as determined in the design and size phase. As for libraries closing - why are local private schools expending millions to build state-of-the-art libraries and new libraries drawing record attendance? Your facts are simply wrong. Do the research.
By law, and as the recipient of federal monies, Atherton cannot restrict use of the Park to Atherton residents. And why should we? Perhaps Menlo Park and Redwood City should consider charging us a fee? Maybe Burgess should be off-limits to Atherton residents and Little League teams? If we intend to close off the gate to Felton Gables because they won't let school children pass over private property (and as was suggested even restrict their right to build gates that back up to the Park on their own land) why not have guards posted to keep out any non-Atherton residents? Remember they tried that along Connecticut beaches? Illegal, let alone unconscionable.
To Wedding Planner – "Someone pays the town $3,000 or more to use the facilities for a few hours and the council thinks this is not profitable? How?" How? Because there is such a thing as EXPENSES. Look at the materials from the October 19, 2011 council meeting (they are on-line) that relate to continuing to rent out the park. Look at the HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS of taxpayers' money which has gone into subsidizing these mostly non-Atherton parties just the last few years. It is precisely these costly events (with no guarantee that changes can be put into place to make them profitable) that have contributed to "hard pressed [financially] Atherton". And what about the wear and tear referred to in a recent article? The town received $1,050 this summer for a corporate event for 500-800 people. Our park effectively could not be used by residents at the time, suffered foot-traffic (at a minimum), and with overhead included probably ended up costing the residents money -- but wait -- maybe the residents like paying for parties to which they aren't invited more than they like having non-residents borrow books.
What a bunch of close-minded, selfish people we have become. As for the petitions, incredibly biased surveys (complete with prejudicial and misleading cover letter) and the new Town Center, I refer you to my comment posted there. For years I have read on these blogs about Atherton's negative press. The lawsuits are nothing – they happen in the best of communities for no fault of their own. What we should be ashamed of is so much of what has been written here – the" keep everyone else out" attitude, the failure to think in terms of a community. In supposing we are somehow better than others, we have truly come off worse.
a resident of Atherton: Lindenwood
on Oct 25, 2011 at 9:47 am
[Post removed. The quote is from an anonymous poster. Please don't attribute to a named person.]
a resident of another community
on Oct 25, 2011 at 1:11 pm
I liked Smell A Rat's post. I use facilities of other towns, & I know that you all do, too. If you look at the Yelp reviews for the park, the majority of them are from out of towners, who've been to the park for various events & reasons.
The whole renting things out is always an issue, whether it's at a church, school, park or other large place. It's not always easy to valance the needs of the residents/members/students of a facility w/the need to make some money & maintain it.
Atherton has always been considered exclusive & us locals have always rolled our eyes at the myriad self-important snobberies we encounter in conjunction w/Atherton, because frankly, much of it is ridiculous. But why all of the sudden this desire to make the park exclusive? You should've restricted its use *years* ago. Oh, wait, maybe you can't legally do that? Or don't you know? Either way, now that the library will be at the park, they're intertwined, so it seems moot to try to make the park exclusive to the town's residents.
What are people so scared of? The traffic? That sounds to me like a realistic potential issue- but not a 24/7 one. Or are you all scared that the unworthy, unwashed masses from nearby will suddenly descend on your new library/community center? Please, I think your concerns need a serious reality check. I promise to shower right before heading over!
a resident of another community
on Oct 25, 2011 at 1:15 pm
Wait, is Rat saying that ATHERTON receives handouts for its park?
a resident of Atherton: Lindenwood
on Oct 25, 2011 at 2:09 pm
"By law, and as the recipient of federal monies, Atherton cannot restrict use of the Park to Atherton residents"
This is an interesting assertion but please cite the laws in question. Palo Alto receives a lot of Federal funds and still restricts access to Foothill Park to its residents.
a resident of Atherton: other
on Oct 26, 2011 at 11:25 pm
To Smell a Rat,
Didn't Park and Rec request that council survey the town on the library in the Park? You did not comment on that part of my statement? Do you think council should honor the suggestions of those that have been serving on commissions for years?
A few years back the council formed a Blue Ribbon Task force, but it did not give the Blue Ribbon Task force the library as part of its scope on a town center. Seems like the 300 signatures disagree with that decision. Do you think the council made a mistake by not asking the Blue Ribbon Task force to consider the library?
Your response to Ms. Gentry states that a survey done over fifty year ago had as the number one response to move the library to the park. Did the survey ask if the residents wanted to build a Regional 11,000 square foot library? How did they think they were going to get the money? Why didn't it happen? Why would they want to move the library to the park? What were the second and third choices? Can you have the Library committee post this survey on the town's web site?
Ms. Gentry made no comment about weddings in the park. Didn't the council decide to stop renting the park out for weddings and corporate events?
You tell Atherton Voter to do the research. Can the Library committee give us some numbers? How many people a year from Atherton use the library? How many people a year from outside Atherton use the library? Will the town do a town survey as part of the research? Do you think that once all the private schools libraries are built, will less people go to the Atherton library?
Atherton provides educational facilities for thousands of people. Many of these schools want to expand. You support extra visitors into Atherton for the library. Do you support increasing the number of students at the schools?
Your comments to Wedding Planner are that the council has not figured out a way to make a profit charging $3000.00 for a wedding rental. The council should have figured out how much charge to cover rental costs years ago. Didn't they hire someone a few years back to do a study of fees?
Your last paragraph is about the lawsuits from years ago. The council decided to sue the school district to stop construction of the MA Preforming Arts Center, voted to stop a couple from moving two urns across town, and voted to stop three residents from moving into their homes. After spending a few hundred thousand dollars in legal fees and having numerous residents come to meetings to voice their disapproval, the council let the Preforming Arts Center be built, the urns be moved, and the residents move into their homes.
You write that we are closed minded for not wanting to let others use Park for a Library, but you write that we should not let others use the Park for their wedding, memorial, or birthday party. That is a contradiction to me. If you want others to use the Park, why not allow them to marry, remember, and celebrate in the Park? Is it being "closed minded" to prevent those uses, while advocating reading a book and renting a community room?
If the majority of the town wants to keep or enlarge the library where it is and keep it regional. The council should respect that opinion. If the majority of the town wants a library in the park, then all should respect that opinion.
You quoted the survey the council did in the 1950s. Why do you oppose doing a survey now?
a resident of Atherton: Lindenwood
on Oct 27, 2011 at 3:49 pm
smell a rat asks:
To Atherton Voter - "The new building in the Park is a new community center with abundant meeting rooms.... why are libraries closing across the country as digital books become the norm?" There is no indication that the new library would have anything more than one small meeting room, and perhaps not even that if the community did not want it as determined in the design and size phase. As for libraries closing - why are local private schools expending millions to build state-of-the-art libraries and new libraries drawing record attendance? Your facts are simply wrong. Do the research
The first bit of research I did was to look up library usage on Wikipedia and here is the link. I need not say anymore but if you want evidence of the decline of library usage read it well for facts and perhaps you will not be the one to make misrepresentations:
Web Link
Also you may read the library Needs Assessment report on the ALBSC in which they base their recommendation for an 11,000 square foot building to house the multiple use rooms and sections of this place. It boggles my mind how you can represent there would be just one small meeting room. Your facts are the ones completely wrong.
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rowr! 12.12.2009 |
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