Frisbie steps down after 44 years on library board

Change does not scare Richard Frisbie—either in his own life or for his beloved library. In fact, he's writing a book about it.

The 84-year-old Frisbie, who is retiring Tuesday after 44 years on the board of Arlington Heights Memorial Library, predicts both the library and books themselves will thrive in this digital age.

“We are living in a very exciting time with the digital revolution,” he said. “It's the information age, and our staff is trained to cope with it. They can tell you the sites you can more or less count on.”

Libraries will be places where you download electronic books but also will keep books as we know them—words and pictures on paper—which will never go away, said Frisbie.

“A book is a perfectly mature technology,” he said. “You don't need electricity to read it. You can read it in bed, in the bathtub, on the beach, on the train. They last.”

Compare 2,000-year-old papyrus that is still legible today to 1980s computers, discs and software that are now obsolete, said Frisbie, noting that nobody knows what the technology will be in another 15 years.

Frisbie and his wife, Margery, a Daily Herald columnist, have each written several books. The one he is working on now is designed to help professional writers cope with change.

After all, that's what he's done throughout his career.

“I've already had to cope with a lot of change,” said Frisbie, who was a reporter and editor with the Chicago Daily News, worked for an advertising agency, was an editor for Chicago Magazine and has been self-employed longer than he's been on the library board.

For three decades Frisbie wrote themed copy for large datebooks, but two changes in the 1990s put an end to that enterprise: the popularity of storing appointments in hand-held devices and the loss of sales access to 8 million names and addresses when Montgomery Ward went out of business.

Of course, it's easier to be optimistic about the future of libraries when you're on the board of one like Arlington Heights Memorial Library.

“It's one of the best in the country,” Frisbie said. “Of single-building libraries, this is the second-busiest in the whole country.”

One of the library's salutes to technology is loaning out e-reader devices like Kindles and Nooks so people can decide if they want to buy one. DVDs are very popular, as are informational databases that are too expensive for people to obtain privately. Teaching patrons how to operate their smart phones and other personal technologies will probably take more library resources soon, he added.

As befits a journalist, Frisbie's cause on the library board has been defending the First Amendment. He's also stressed looking ahead to try to avoid unintended consequences of votes and policies.

Fellow board members have usually been on the same side with these issues, he said.

One board debate centered around whether residents could use meeting rooms for political or religious reasons.

“Some just didn't understand that as long as you have a meeting room and it's open to everybody on the same basis, the subject of the meeting is none of your business,” Frisbie said.

When the classic library controversy arises and a resident or group wants a book removed from the collection, the complaining party is reminded this is a diverse community, he said.

“You don't have to read it,” Frisbie said. “Our staff has been trained to hear people out.”

Frisbie fits issues the library has had with homeless people into the same category.

“Some people thought they shouldn't be allowed to sleep in the library, but I said I've slept in some of the best libraries in the world,” he said. “We now have a policy: No prolonged sleeping, The patron is always right—almost.”

Here's Frisbie's definition of prolonged sleeping: If a security guard sees a person sleeping during three rounds through the library, he or she touches the slumberer and says “We'd rather you didn't sleep here.”

The Arlington Heights Memorial Library has grown with the village during Frisbie's tenure. When he first was elected in 1967, the bond issue for the current building had been passed, and planning was well under way. He remembers discussions of architectural details like hardware that dragged to midnight.

While residents have always been very supportive of the library, bond issues are never taken for granted. Once voters approved buying more books, but rejected funding an addition to house them, Frisbie noted.

At another point the board proposed a second addition to the library, and Frisbie believes the community wisely voted down the plan.

“As it turned out, we came back around with a much more ambitious project and got that through,” he said.

Other members of the board said they will miss Frisbie.

David Unumb, just re-elected to the board, summed up Frisbie's passion as “the right to read.”

Frisbie, Unumb said, was adamant about the public's right to know — now called “transparency” in government circles — about the actions of the board, as well as the library's collection.

“Perhaps his most memorable attribute is his staunch defense of intellectual freedom, but he always went to the heart of the matter and brought to bear his personal experiences and extensive work in publishing and advertising to express a truly circumspect assessment of the issues,” board President G. Victor Johnson said.

Frisbie Facts:

ŸRichard and Margery Frisbie will celebrate their 61st wedding anniversary in June. They have eight children and 12 grandchildren.

ŸThe couple moved to Arlington Heights in 1954 and have lived in their bungalow one-half block from the library since the early 1960s.

ŸThey met when Richard represented the Daily News at a news conference Margery coordinated for Mundelein College in Chicago. It was the very sensational announcement that Elizabeth Bentley, a famous Communist spy who flipped to help the FBI and converted to Catholicism, was joining the college faculty. Even Time magazine showed up.

ŸThe Frisbies wrote their first book together, “The Do-It-Yourself Parent.” Margery is known for “This Bookish Inclination” about the library and a biography of Father Jack Egan, who worked in the Chicago area for social justice and against racial segregation.

Ÿ Richard's most famous book is “How to Peel a Sour Grape,” making the point that everybody's a failure at something. Among its accolades was a positive review in The New York Times.