There’s no question that something needs to be done with the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, which, after 30 years of neglect and mismanagement, is in about as good a shape as a D.C. group house populated solely by young men in their first two years out of college. The carpet is threadbare, nothing works like it’s supposed to, and it’s really a pretty depressing place to read. Not exactly qualities you hope for in a big city library.

The building itself, however, was designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, the leading modernist architect in the entire friggin’ world. It’s not only the only Mies in our nation’s capital, it’s the only library Mies ever designed. That the building is an architectural landmark is not in dispute. What is to be done with building, on the other hand, now is. And Saturday at 1:00 p.m. at the library, located at 901 G Street, NW, there will be a public hearing to listen to community feedback on the fate of the library. Council-member Kathy Patterson is slated to appear. Call the D.C. Council’s Committee on Education, Libraries, and Recreation at 202-724-8195 and if you’d like to register to speak at the meeting.

It’s one of those terribly complicated District planning issues, but the bottom line is this: In one camp, you’ve got D.C. Mayor Williams, who appointed a task force last year to look into overhauling the entire library system for the city. Since then, he has been convinced that the MLK Library is not viable, and would like permission to lease it out for 99 years to a private entity to be determined later. The proceeds would then be used to help pay for the aquisition and construction of a new, smaller main library at the old convention center. In the other camp, you’ve got architectural, cultural and historic preservationists, as well as longtime District residents, who would like to see the Mies building restored and preserved for, if not its original, at the very least a public, purpose.