LIBRARY: It's officially "the Kennett Library"

So there you have it. The library board met on May 17 and officially renamed the library the Kennett Library, removing Bayard Taylor's name while recognizing his importance to the public and promising to bring his legacy back to its rightful place.
As I've said many times before, I don't like the name change and I don't think it was necessary. I wasn't convinced by the arguments from the library's $225-an-hour consultant, Carl Francis, about the importance of "branding," and I'm not sure this is an effective way to move beyond the prior library board's glaring, controversial missteps (they, too, wanted to change the name, without any due diligence).
But, and this is a big "but," what's different now is that this current board comprises driven, dedicated, good people with deep ties to the community who are absolutely convinced that they can get a new library built for the Kennett area where so many have failed. I give them a huge amount of credit for that, and I suppose I reluctantly have to accede to their belief that changing the name is the right thing to do.
The board claims that an overwhelming majority of the people who attended the consultant's presentation think they're on the right track. They certainly made some enthusiastic converts among the public, including Lynn Sinclair, who last year started a petition against dropping "Bayard Taylor" from the name but is now sold on the idea. Mostly what I'm hearing, though, is that the people who didn't like the proposed new name still don't like it, and the ones who don't care still don't care.
And realistically, I think people will keep calling the library what they've always called it, either the Bayard Taylor library or the Kennett library.