IMLS Report: State Library Funding Still Suffering
Library
Journal: 1.23.2018
by Lisa Peet
State
Library Administrative Agencies (SLAA) across the country have largely still
not recovered from the major decreases in revenue and staffing they experienced
during the economic recession, according to the Institute of Museum and Library
Services (IMLS) biennial State
Library Administrative Agencies (SLAA) Survey, conducted in FY16.
“The
SLAA report shows how many of the nation’s libraries continue to be financially
challenged by the effects of the recession as they strive to maintain valued
community services,” IMLS director Kathryn K. Matthew told LJ.
The
report, the eighth such cooperative effort of the Chief Officers of State
Library Agencies (COSLA), IMLS, and American Institutes for Research, offers a
look at long-term trends across the country, as well as contrasting the ways
that different agencies have responded to decreases in funding as their
public-facing work has grown. It tracks three sets of indicators: revenues and
expenditures; workforce; and services provided.
Over
the past 12 years SLAA revenues declined by over a fifth, with expenditures
falling by 22 percent, according to the report. SLAAs
rebounded slightly in 2014 but that didn’t last—as of FY16, both metrics are at
their lowest levels since 2004. Revenues and expenditures of funds through the
Library Services Technology Act (LSTA) decreased by 20 percent from 2004–16.
SLAA
Survey 2016 | p 9
In
FY16, SLAA revenues totaled more than $1 billion across federal, state, and
other revenue sources; 82 percent from states and 15 percent from federal
sources. Expenditures came in at only slightly less, with two-thirds spent on
financial assistance to libraries and a third going to operations. READ
MORE >>
SLAA
Survey 2016 | p 14
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