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.