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By: Jessamyn West,
on 3/24/2010
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So, I have some free time this week since I am supposed to be at PLA. My slides and my notes and links are online: Library 2.0 and Reader’s Advisory. I read about what the other speakers had to say, it sounds like it was a really lively pre-conference.
I came back to a facebook full of pleas for library assistance including the Save Libraries umbrella group for all the assorted campaigns. Apparently this is a very bad time to be a library. I’ve been meaning to do a wrap-up of some of the save the library campaigns. My apologies that it’s taken me so long to do this.
- Charlotte & Mecklenburg County libraries [in NC, original home to 23 Things] may have to close 12 branches depending on what happens with the budgets. I was alerted to this via the $2 million in one week facebook group. Clicking on “learn more” on their website takes me to a donation form with a little more information but I think this budget page is most useful and this news release explains what’s really happening.
- Los Angeles Public is in trouble again and their Save the Libraries website is back up and running with newly updated information and some good action items including sample letters you can send to the mayor. There is a meeting today. Facebook page has some more details.
Florida is looking at wiping out state aid for libraries. Coming from a state that has no state-level funding for libraries, I know what a mess this is going to be. I’ve also been to two different Florida library systems in the past few months. They’ve got a good thing going on, it would be a shame to screw it up. Blog is here. Here’s the FLA’s statement and list of links.
The New Jersey Library Association has posted a Critical Legislative Alert (pdf). There’s more information on their legislative page. Looks like budget cuts and furlough days for state library employees.
There’s a mostly-empty Save Libraries website up at LISHost. ALA has an undated page which may or may not be relevant. The pages it links to seem to be from 2009.
Ohio has a very attention-getting website at Save Ohio Libraries with links to some great tools by OPLIN including a find-a-library tool.
In a little bit of good news, it looks like after the hubub of the past few years Providence Public Library is doing okay.
If people want to add more in the comments, please do. Times are tough all over, b
I had a good time over at BoingBoing. You can read a post on my other blog that sort of lists the 29 posts that I made [I know!] and where I got my ideas from. A few library posts, maybe not enough. I just got back from Niceville Florida where I gave a talk about Content Management Systems. I also got to hear Nicole talk about open source [heard it before but always enjoy it] and met Tim Daniels who works for Georgia Libraries and gave a great talk about open source OPACs.
And I’m still unpacking. I got back late Sunday and spent most of today helping the folks at the high school get settled in with their new mail server. However I did read this post about the status of Haitian libraries that I thought was worth a mention. Things are better than expected, and better than first reported. Of course, as always, there’s still work to be done.
“The right to read of blind and partially sighted Canadians is in jeopardy.” More information about the Canadian National Institute for the Blind’s financial crisis in this CBC article. Stay up to date on what’s happening on their facebook page. If you are Canadian, please consider sending a letter expressing your concerns.
By: Jessamyn West,
on 6/21/2009
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So if you read the papers at all, you know that even though things are tough, people use libraries like crazy. That said, libraries are getting funding cuts, despite, in many cases, increased use. This sucks. One of the things about living in Vermont is that there’s not that much to even trim from our budgets, but the state library (and the newish state librarian whose job I do not envy at all) closed one of Vermont’s very few regional libraries to the public and libraries who want to borrow materials now have to make appointments. This is at a time when library circulation in the state is up amost six percent and local tax support is up five percent. In other state library news
My friend Kim Cooper was one of the people behind the SaveLAPL website which you may have read about here a month ago. Just wanted to mention that their lobbying and activism efforts appear to have been successful within the scope of what they were aiming for and this is good news for LAPL patrons and staff generally in my opinion. Congrats Kim and Co. and everyone else who made an effort and got involved.
Based on the recommendations made on May 14, the proposed Sunday closures of the eight regional branch libraries will not be happening, and 36.5 library jobs have been saved! $2,000,000 is being restored to the library’s book buying budget, from $7.7 million to $9.7 million!
Some friends of mine are working on the Save LAPL website. Los Angeles Public Library is having budget problems and considering some odd (and to my mind bad) choices about how to curtail services including…
Unless citizens of L.A. can convince Mayor Villaraigosa and The Board of Library Commissioners to change their plans, starting on July 1st all branch libraries will begin charging a fee of $1 per book to request anything sent from another branch. This wouldn’t be so bad if local branches were well stocked with reading material, but they simply are not, and were never meant to be.
Please consider learning more and adding a testimonial or getting involved.
By: Jessamyn West,
on 2/19/2008
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The libraries in Victoria BC, the subject of an ongoing (166 days as of today) strike, are being closed and employees are being locked out. Here is the statement from the library
Due to the ongoing strike by CUPE 410, the Greater Victoria Public Library today announced that it will serve 72-hour lock-out notice on the union. It is anticipated that the 72-hour lock-out notice will take effect on Sunday, February 17 2008 at 5:01pm.
Here is the web site statement of the union.
In the 165 days since we started taking strike actions, the employer’s bargaining agent has made no attempt to restart negotiations. Since early in 2007, they have simply refused to discuss the major outstanding issues. Library workers experience this as a contempt for their needs, and for their contributions to the quality of life in the Capital area.
Here is a short article from the Vancouver Sun on the subject and a longer one from the Globe & Mail. Here is an column from the Victoria Times Columnist with some details about the actual money they’re talking about wagewise. One of the interesting parts of the ongoing saga is that some library workers, as part of their protests regarding promised but not delivered pay equity with other municipal workers, were waiving overdue fines for all patrons, costing the library between $40,000 and $50,000 per month. This likely endeared them to some of their patrons but was a interesting form of civil disobedience on the job. A few blogs posts on the subject here, and here. [updated because I had the title/location wrong and needed to republish]
And now we start the big fight over EPA libraries again. I don’t know about you but I find this so upsetting. Not that someone could be so shortsighted as to think you could close a bunch of libraries with practically unique information and replace them with a (shoddy, sorry) database, but that the whole idea of closing a LIBRARY isn’t seen as a last-ditch thing you only do when you need to, I don’t know, burn the books for fuel to keep from freezing to death. In any case, my bad for not reporting more on this, I had OMG fatigue. This latest article Congress Directs EPA to Re-Open It’s Libraries is cautiously good news, but very very angering to those who care about information services. Granted, it’s a partisan article, but if the facts are indeed correct the whole thing has been and continues to be a fiasco. I’d love to hear from other readers with direct knowledge of any of this.
Prior to the closures, the budget for the EPA library network was $2.5 million. By earmarking $3 million, Congress increased the total library budget, allowing the agency to absorb the expense of collecting dispersed collections and replacing jettisoned facilities. For example, EPA closed its largest regional library in Chicago and sold all of its fixtures, valued at more than $40,000, for less than $350. [emphasis mine]
The rationale for the library closures was never clearly spelled out by the agency, which maintained that it wanted to digitize all of its holdings. Its original claim of cost savings did not bear up under scrutiny and clashed with the enormous expense of digitizing hundreds of thousands of documents. In addition, the agency did not anticipate copyright restrictions, which barred many of its holdings from being digitized.
One of the constant threats that small libraries have to contest with is threat of closure. In Vermont where I live many small libraries just barely stay open because people in the town advocate for them and the decision ultimately rests with the town. If they want to pay for it, they get to keep it. In Indiana there is a movement afoot to consolidate the state’s libraries to, I believe, one per county. It’s at the initial stages, a plan by the governor, at this point. Small libraries are discussion the issue wiht their boards, and other libraries. The plan would cut the total number of libraries from 238 to 92 via consolidation. This would, apparently save property tax money and “streamline” government somewhat. We’re talking about a state that has advertisements on its government site search. The Indiana State Library website doens’t have any immediately available information on this topic that I could find through basic searching.
It’s pretty clear that this would mostly shift library costs to the patron (travel, re-learning systems, fees?) and staff (lost jobs, retraining, commuting) and away from the funding bodies. So, sure there is money to be saved but would a reorganization scheme actually work? I find the concept chilling but I haven’t really started reading about it yet. For people who are interested in this issue, I suggest the Save Our Small Public Libraries blog and the INpublb archives (view by thread to find consoludation discussions) [ttw]
A somewhat urgent sounding post from FreeGovInfo: “[A]t a time when the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are greatly ramping up the need for evidence-based medicine in the military, the Pentagon seems to be choosing to gut their medical information resources.”
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“The Jackson County Library Information blog is a place to share information regarding the funding and closures of our 15 branch libraries. All fifteen branches of the Jackson County [OR] Library System will close beginning April 7, 2007 for an indefinite period of time due to lack of funding.” This is a sad sad blog, including posts like “Why Jackson County Must Close Libraries” “How you can help” and a Library Stories page. [thanks rick]
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Heather Braum and I are working to get savelibraries.org up and running. We created the site this weekend but this is a labor of love that I have taken on in my spare time which this week has been nil. We’d love to have you contribute and help with the site though! -LR
Great list! Thanks for compiling. I also ran across this one from Nevada Co, CA sponsored by the local paper, the library & the library friends. They have raised $80K so far
http://www.theunion.com/article/20100208/NEWS/100209798
For New Jersey, see http://infolinkadvocacyupdates.pbworks.com/
The Boston Public Library is considering closing as many of a third of branches and laying off up to a quarter of staff. The biggest of the Boston Save the Library groups is here: http://peopleofboston.org/