Summer, a season filled with vacations, outdoor activity, fun, and sadly for me, budgeting. However, for the first time in 2 years, I don't feel like we'll be cutting. Instead, I think the benefit of the cuts and economizing we have made over the past 2 1/2 years are finally serving us well. Currently, it looks like our mill levy will stay flat. But for the first time in two budget cycles we won't be cutting. Plus, the three critical issues facing us will be addressed; building maintenance, the library's collection, and staff compensation.
We have held steady and made do with what we had in a way that public libraries have perfected over the years. While that honed sense of thrift might be worn like a badge of honor, it is no pleasant achievement. With our building showing its age, some "must do" repairs can be put off no longer. Rather than borrow money though, we have been socking away capital improvement funds and will do more of that in the 2011 budget. This strategy saves us from having to borrow for, and pay interest on, big expenses. We will tackle re-roofing the building and potentially replacing some older air conditioning units. We hope to be able to restore some of the funding that was reduced for library materials. And hopefully - hopefully - look at some better lighting in some of our stack areas.
The library's fiscal year is the calendar year, so we still have 6 months of scrimping to go, but when things look dark, stories like this always seem to pop up in my reading. These two interesting articles have shown up in the news lately and I'd like to share them. This first article is a rebuttal to a Fox Chicago news story about public libraries. The Chicago Library Commissioner's response is the most polite dressing-down I've read in some time - bravo! The second article poses an interesting question - could public libraries be poised to be the next big pop-culture wave? Maybe. Public libraries are as "local" as you can get and librarians do "know stuff" as the article says. Who knows. I like the idea of a TV show because that article writer is correct - there would be no lack of comical, head-scratching, "what the...?"-type material.
nice post!
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