Week 4 Readings Reactions

Michael Kelley

Bottoming Out

Using poll data, Kelley shows that even as state legislatures cut library funding, local communities are still supportive of their libraries. With the specter of more budget cuts looming, libraries are trying to stay relevant while using fundraising and staff reduction to deal with the current losses.

The point about relevancy in this age of quickly evolving technology is something I have been hearing about a lot. My home library just introduced Blu-rays as a new format to borrow, and my Collection Development class discussed the different licensing issues that e-books create.

As an incoming new librarian, it is the staff reductions that concern me the most though. On one hand I see staff reductions as less jobs available for me to fill. However, it may be that libraries are going to have to move towards a business model that asks employees to combine duties, for example a children’s librarian may also have the duty of administering the library’s website for summer reading. In this case, my generation of librarians will be better equipped to take on such varied duties than librarians who were not trained to use technology tools.

Beth Dempsey

Vote of Confidence

Dempsey paints a much bright picture of libraries’ financial situations, using referenda pass/fail percentages to show that libraries are still highly valued by their local communities.

 While the overall point of this article was that libraries were still supported by their communities, I found Dempsey’s exploration of the differences between the passing and failing campaigns very interesting. Campaigning well was associated with polling the community before putting measures on the ballot and creating a strong impact message. Libraries are learning that PR is just as necessary for them as commercial businesses. It is not enough for libraries to have an 85% satisfaction rating from users, the community needs to know about that statistic.

Thomas J. Hennen Jr.

Performing Triage on Budgets in the Red

Hennen points out that libraries are still around, even if they are having some financial troubles. He then presents tools for libraries to adapt to the current financial and technological landscape.

The five tools he lays out are all interesting ideas, but some are better than others in my opinion.

-Combining service areas to avoid “overhead and duplication” sounds like a reasonable idea, but putting it in practice sounds like it would mean a reduction of library jobs.

-Having a better system to deal with gifts is a great idea. I had no idea that gifts could be substituted for taxes that already exist. That seems ridiculous to me. A gift should be in addition to the library’s current funding, not used to replace a tax, as if that tax was a loan to be repaid.

-I love the idea of having an e-donation option on library websites. This would be a great way to make donations a more visible option to the average user. I do think it would have to be presented carefully to avoid any negative attention implying that the library is asking for more money on top of the tax money they already receive.

-I had never heard of impact fees before reading this article, but they sound like a great way to keep funding responsibility more fairly distributed.

-The call for political engagement is fair, in that having vocal community support is essential in gaining political support. I think caution should be used in involving politics with libraries, as our neutrality and objectivity could be compromised.

January 31st Readings

“Bottoming Out?”-Michael Kelley

The author takes a look at the results from a survey concerned with public library budgets and funding.

While written with a generally positive outlook for the future, this article is depressing. I also wonder how accurate its predictions were. I remember hearing similar things last year at the public library I was working at. However, rumors of colossal budget cuts started circulating around early summertime and by the time I left to start grad school in August $40,000 had to be cut immediately from the current year’s budget, with another $30,000 and $20,000 from the next two years’.  Granted that is just one small library’s experience, but were things actually different for other libraries around the country? Or was there a sense of false optimism at the start of last year?

“Performing Triage on Budgets in the R*E*D”-Thomas Hennen Jr.

The author discusses options library should look at when figuring out how to mend their budgets.

I’m not sure about this article. Given it was written in 2003 I would like to see a follow up article from the author, or those that used his strategies, and see if what he suggested actually worked. The way they are presented, they don’t seem doable. It’s like there are great examples given, but no direction. Perhaps though, that is the real problem. The last 5 years or so that I have been paying off and on attention to library matters has seen lots of suggestions on how to fix things and for some libraries, they even work! But perhaps the real problem is that libraries are lacking a direction, especially now in 2012. What really is the purpose of a library? As a class we tried to create a definition, but what is that definition really saying? Does it actually help us as librarians-in-training to plow the way for libraries in the future? Or does it just give us an all-encompassing answer to make sure we’ve covered our bases and not left anything out that might be important later on?

“Vote of Confidence”-Beth Dempsey

The author discussed the possibilities libraries can achieve when they are politically active in their own future.

 This is the type of knowledge I believe that every library and information science student needs to graduate knowing. Advocacy is one of the best tools a library can use to increase its presence in its community and in order to have great advocators, all librarians, not just directors, need to be able to discuss their libraries in terms their patrons are going to identify with. This article reminded me of another article that I feel should go hand in hand with this one. It is written by Kathleen Imhoff and is titled “Creating Advocates for Public Libraries.” These two articles are similar in their use of strong examples of what happens when libraries succeed in connecting with their public and making them aware of current issues that their libraries are facing. According to one of our slides from class last week, even those that don’t use libraries feel that they are still vital to their communities. Making sure we graduate future librarians with this knowledge is not only helping them formulate ways to increase the library’s importance within their community but it is giving them a leg up when it comes time to ask for the community’s support.

Week 4 Readings

Bottoming Out?

This article talks about how libraries have struggled the past few years with dwindling funds.

This article brings to light a scary fact for libraries and there are not unlimited funds. It is a little hard to read this article because it shows that it may be hard to find a job after completing my degree. To make myself more marketable to libraries, I need to have a wide variety of skills and have a forward looking vision for the library. In my forward looking vision I need to include different areas of advancement that could make the library obsolete. The library must try to stay relevant to today’s population on a smaller budget.

Performing Triage on Budgets in the R*E*D

The author, Thomas Hennen Jr., give five different ways to get libraries back in the black.

The first plan is to pool more resources. This is a good idea to eliminate duplication and have shared material between libraries. This is useful but sometime a patron does not want to wait for the item to come in, they want the item as soon as they walk into the library. The second plan is to have planned giving and foundations. This sounds like a good idea but seems like it can take a lot of time and does not always work the way you want it to, such as the money is being substituted for government funding. If libraries do use this plan they must be very careful to make sure that the plan will help them and not put libraries worse off than before. The third plan is e-commerce initiatives. This is a good idea because patrons can feel like giving back to their library in a small ways and every little bit counts. This is a very simple and easy way to give to the library. The fourth plan is impact fees. This fee is placed on newcomers but what about the people who are already living in the area. If this the first year that this fee is in place, I think that it should be taken from all residents and then only newcomers every year after. Also, if a person is moving from one side of town to another, they should not have to pay the fee again, since they are still living in the same district. The last plan is resistance. This plan can be hard to get rolling because the library needs the community to come together and get behind the library, but if it is done effectively then the library will be able to keep and even maybe increase its funding.

Vote of Confidence

This article talks about the importance of getting the community involved.

This article opened my eyes on the involvement of the community. It is sometimes hard to judge the impact of the library on the community. The library needs to put itself out there and make sure that the community knows what is going on and that the community as a whole can impact the library and the direction it is going in.

Week 4

Vote of Confidence

This article showcases a reason to be positive about public libraries in America. The author states that despite a potentially hostile political climate, many libraries are receiving the funds that they need to stay afloat through savvy campaigns in their communities. I liked that this article highlighted funding success stories for libraries as well as the need for crafting campaigns that emphasize the importance of libraries to voters. I did not, however, agree with the author regarding the power of the TEA Party. In my opinion, much of the seeming power of the TEA Party came from the very extensive media coverage given to it and not to its actual power on the ground. Given that the country is in a recession, it would make sense from (some) lawmakers perspectives to refuse to grant funds out to public libraries.

Bottoming Out?

Michael Kelley’s article outlines the budget cutting and wrangling that has happened in the last several years due to the decrease of funding. I liked this article better than Dempsey’s because it demonstrated the probable factors for why the library budgets were cut. Unfortunately for many libraries, the elected officials in their communities see them as a low priority. From their perspective, then, it is okay to cut budgets or at least not augment existing ones. According to Kelley in New York City “three library systems saw their FY11 budgets cut a collective $16.5 million in mid-fiscal year in part because the city had to begin taking steps to replace $853 million of expiring federal stimulus funding” (30). Popular anti-tax sentiment may have something to do with budget cuts, but it makes more sense for campaigns to defend funding to focus on holding elected officials accountable for public needs.

Performing triage on budgets in the R*E*D

This article details a number of ways how to make up for budget shortfalls in public libraries. While the author offers up many good suggestions as to how to procure more funds for the library, the article is somewhat dated. For example, he proposes using “impact fees” to obtain funds for a library (39). Newly constructed homes would have this fee added onto their price when purchased. This article was written in the middle of a housing boom which has since collapsed. Thus, many locales may not have much opportunity to obtain this type of funding. Perhaps the author can revise this article in order to make it more relevant for librarians today.    

Week 4 Readings

Library Budget Manual

The Library Budget Manual is a useful document outlining the fundamental items library budgets must take into account and the basic political procedures that are followed in order to get them approved. It is surprising that so much of a library’s budget and fiscal planning is actually out of the control of the library itself. It does make sense - public libraries are public institutions and are therefore at the mercy of the public - but I did not realize how much local politics plays into not only approving the library budget, but also what it ultimately includes. 

"Performing Triage on Budgets in the R*E*D”

 

The three articles were primarily concerned with different aspects of this very issue, and how to put power back into the hands of librarians. Hennen’s “Performing Triage” suggested that everything from community outreach to staged protest be implemented to save library budgets. Although public support for libraries would likely drop if librarians took to the streets, Hennen does make some good suggestions. First, he proposes that libraries form districts. By forming a larger entity, budgeting would be easier and local libraries would have more clout (Hennen 38). Second, he urges libraries to draw on resources they already have. Instead of focusing budgets largely on expensive electronic resources and equipment, librarians should promote the concept of free space and resources to the community. They should also encourage library fans to get more involved with the local library in any number of ways (Hennen 37, 39).

"Bottoming Out?" 

Kelley’s “Bottoming Out?” reinforces Hennen’s suggestion that libraries form districts in order to stay afloat in difficult economic times.   Quoting librarian Wendy Phillips, he writes, “The library service district has a strong and diversified tax base...Revenue declines may be projected in the future, but [they are] delayed because we started from a healthier position” (Kelley 29). Not only can libraries gain more political clout by forming larger groups, but they garner money from a wider and more diverse geographical area, evening out funding among individual libraries and slowing financial hardship. However, Kelley raises the example of Illinois libraries and how funding for Illinois’ regional systems is being cut. One would think that because the larger libraries in a regional system uphold the smaller libraries and schools in terms of offering interlibrary loan and other electronic services, funding for the regional systems would be considered important.  

"Vote of Confidence" 

Dempsey’s “Vote of Confidence” argues that in order to gain more funding, libraries need to form relationships within the communities they serve. She makes an excellent point. Library funding is drawn from taxes and other local government funding, and there needs to be physical proof that the library is a vital part of the community. Also, community members and politicians have the ability to influence each other, thereby gaining more funding for the local library. As in any profession or business, it’s all about who you know.