THE BUZZ
CO M M U N I T Y
RETURN POLICY
Charlotte Mecklenburg Library CEO and Chief Librarian Marcellus “M.T.” Turner in the second-story Great Hall of the Main Library uptown, before a mural that local artist Osiris Rain painted in November to mark the library’s closing.
Prodigal Southerner Marcellus “M.T.” Turner prepares to lead the library system through a long season of change
WHEN HE ARRIVED from Seattle in April 2021, Marcellus “M.T.” Turner encountered boxes already packed and ready for the big clear-out. Even months later, when the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library closed its uptown main branch to the public, the work had only just started: More than 140,000 books, periodicals, rolls of microfiche, and other library items had to move into storage or temporary locations. And that, Turner says, wasn’t even the hard part. “I think the mental dynamics of it all wreak greater havoc on you than the actual getting in and doing,” Turner, the library system’s CEO and chief librarian, says in November as movers continue to collect boxes. “To sort through things to determine what has a useful life, what needs to go to permanent storage versus what goes to temporary storage until we
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come back, packing up offices, going down the hall and saying, ‘Hey, this is yours. Do you want it back? Or do you want me to do something with it?’ Everything that I think any typical person encounters when they move, we face tenfold.” But Turner, 58, faces a pair of deeper complications—the lingering effects of COVID, of course, but also his hiring in the midst of perhaps the most profound shift in the library system’s history. The main library, at 310 N. Tryon St., closed in preparation for a new, $100 million building initially scheduled to open in 2024 but now expected for late 2025. A library has occupied that location for 119 years; much of the current building dates back to 1956, although the library system expanded and renovated it in the late 1980s. The new library will reflect the library system Board of Trustees’ vision of a
CHARLOTTEMAGAZINE.COM // FEBRUARY 2022
modern space that welcomes everyone, including homeless and unemployed people who use it for daytime shelter and to look for jobs. In keeping with reimagined libraries throughout the United States, it’s designed not only for books but with extensive areas for digital learning, meetings, events, a café, and collaborative “makerspaces.” Turner has jumped into the project midstream and with little difficulty; the library board’s vision for the main library in Charlotte matches Turner’s governing philosophy for libraries in general. “Some of the things that I’m hopeful will get traction involve how we can become a more socially conscious library, so that we make sure that everyone feels welcome when they come in our doors,” he says. “We are one of the largest library systems in the state, and we have respon-
RUSTY WILLIAMS
BY GREG LACOUR
