All eyes are on new Library Director Ginnie Cooper, handpicked by the Board of Library Trustees to oversee the “transformation” of our library system in exchange for a million dollars over five years – a bargain, given the disastrous state of the DC Public Library.

Cooper spent her first week visiting branch libraries where she was heard to comment on the clutter. That’s an accurate observation even in the tidiest branches. It owes, at least in part, to a small thing: the lack of consistent signage – something librarians and library patrons have requested for years – and a simple enough fix.

Problems at DCPL certainly go deeper than signs, but Cooper would be right to focus on superficial improvements that can be carried out quickly — both because they would be immediately visible, and because people have asked for them specifically. Library users who particpated in last winter’s “listening sessions” asked DCPL to focus on the basics. Simple cleanliness and good lighting were mentioned repeatedly, as well as things like security and working systems which, understandably, will take longer to implement.

But another easy-to-implement request was for longer hours.

Education and Libraries Committee Chair Kathy Patterson heard that loud and clear. She worked with DCPL and the Library Trustees to find and approve the necessary funding to open libraries on Sundays starting this fall. Hence, Marc Fisher’s column today reporting that Ginnie Cooper told him she “pledges to have all branches open on Sundays by January” comes as a disappointment.

In DC, we have a long acquaintance with obfuscation, postponement, and other tactics of delay. The Board of Library Trustees has elevated — to an art — the serving up of broken promises as gifts. We don’t need spin that “pledges” to achieve what we were already promised for an earlier timeframe. Ginnie Cooper, please, bring us a fresh approach – something more along the lines of what bookstores do, since Fisher quoted that as part of your strategy — deliver what we’re paying for.

The person who pulls off the transformation of DCPL will deserve every penny of a million bucks, but that transformation should start this fall with the keeping of a simple promise – to extend library hours to Sundays.