Budget Cuts - Libraries Under Siege

Budget cuts force libraries to re-examine roles
Google News: 6.21.2011 by Kristen Wyatt, Associated Press

DENVER (AP) — A century after the nation's library building boom, public libraries are under siege: plunging tax revenues are forcing closures and staff cutbacks, while e-readers and the Internet can make a library seem quaint as a place to find a book or do research.

Yet amid severe cutbacks, libraries are finding novel ways to generate money and are rebranding themselves as crucial employment resources for people without computers and as community gathering places that cannot be easily replaced.

"If there's any silver lining in the downturn for libraries, it's that it has really forced us to look at new ways of doing business," said Audra Caplan, president of the Public Library Association, a division of the American Library Association. "We can't depend solely on tax dollars anymore."

Library directors are responding to the dwindling support from local governments by charging for premium services, selling passport photos and joining with DVD retailers to offer commercial movie-rental boxes in exchange for a cut of the sales. In the most extreme examples, some communities have decided to privatize library operations.

On Thursday, the American Library Association meets in New Orleans to begin its annual conference and will address the funding crisis and ways to maintain services.
There's no question libraries face an uncertain future. A 2010 survey by Library Journal showed that 72 percent of surveyed libraries said they faced budget cuts in the previous year, while 43 percent said they had made cuts to staffing. Nearly one in five respondents expressed pessimism about the future of libraries.

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"Libraries are everything — opportunities to come read, better yourself, find out what's going on. But these days, it seems no one really cares about all that," said Charles Holt of Denver, a 50-year-old out-of-work cook who walks daily to a library to pass the time and search for a new job.

These days, Holt is walking farther because his closest library branch is now open just four days a week. Budget cuts in Denver threaten to shut his branch and up to half the city's library branches permanently.

He said even in his relatively low-skill field of commercial cooking, he needs the Internet to find work.

"Not everybody has a computer," said Holt, who said even some unemployment benefits require online applications. READ MORE !