April 17th Readings

The Case for Consolidation

This article discusses the authors opinion on regional library systems.

I found this article to be rather confusing but I’m not sure why that’s the case. I understood his talk of regional library systems. My hometown library is the main branch/headquarters of a dual-county library system (One of the few if not only of its kind in Minnesota. Its website can be found at wasecalesueurlibraries.com) I understood the logic of pooling resources to create better libraries across the board. What I think threw me was his talk about independent revenue systems. My hometown library is still funded by local government. In their case they receive money from three places: Waseca County, Le Sueur County and the City of Waseca. The money is then managed by the director and allocated amongst the branch libraries by need, not by what money came from where. What did the author mean by becoming independent? If a library isn’t getting its money from government, then where is it supposed to get its money from?

Indiana Tax Cuts Hurt PLs

This short news brief discussed the tax cap in Indiana in 2010 and that it will affect Indiana public libraries.

I remember us discussing this situation earlier in the semester. It does seem to suppose what the previous article was saying about dependence on government money, at least from what I could understand. It would be interesting if someone would look at how this really has affected Indiana public libraries. I haven’t really heard too much about how it negatively affected libraries. I mean in part that is because the majority of my library interaction comes from Monroe County Public Library and they seem to be doing just fine in regards to hours and program offerings. But perhaps that is just because libraries in general seem to be able to do so much more down here as compared to back home. There we are down to only two librarians for the whole system, one of which is the director, the bookmobile was cut from the budget a good 20 years ago due to insufficient funds, and besides the summer reading program, there is virtually no additional programming. Perhaps it is all a matter of perspective? But either way, a broad look into how libraries have coped with the change really would be interesting.

The Economic Impact of Libraries in Indiana

This document examined the economic impact that Indiana public libraries have on their communities.

One of the first things I realized while wading through all the business jargon (which I definitely need to improve my comprehension of) is that their numbers were not calculated correctly in regards to how they divvied up the circulation statistics. To a librarian this is probably more obvious, but AV materials generally have much shorter circulation periods than books hence they go out more frequently. This means that just because the AV materials only make up 6% of the collection it does not correlate into 6% of the circulation. It is going to be much higher than that. I know at MCPL last year it was at least half and that seems to be the trend for many libraries. I noticed that this was in a way mentioned in their conclusion. I wonder if the ISL has implemented this change?

Their conclusion section in general was a bit strange. Perhaps it’s only because I only read what was outlined in the syllabus while skimming through the rest, but I failed to understand why they were pushing connecting with the business community so much. While I can see a lot of potential benefits from such a connection, I also think there are more important patron groups to be pursuing.