PVLD Director's Blog

Reason for hope

I'm taking a couple of days off and turning the Memorial Day holiday into a five-day weekend, with a goal of getting some stuff done around the house, and also tuning out work and recharging my batteries.  My preoccupation with the budget challenges faced by PVLD has not left me with much time or energy to write posts that are really thought-provoking, and I'm hoping this will change when I get back next week.

Despite all of the budget issues, I'm heading off with a sense of optimism...not because the financial picture is improving but because of how the staff here at PVLD are responding.  Everyone is understandably anxious about how the budget cuts will affect them personally, and everyone is aware that there is likely to be some pain, but despite that they remain focused on providing outstanding service to our community.

The number and quality of special programs and events at all of our libraries continues to grow, the Librarians have planned outstanding Summer Reading activities for all ages, the staff who support the Passport Service are handling a big jump in volume in addition to their normal duties, the Circulation staff have re-engineered their  work processes so that they have cut the time it takes to get a book back on the shelf after check-in in half, the Facilities staff has brought in-house virtually all of the maintenance activities we used to contract out and dealt with all of the extra work associated with the many new programs and events...I could go on and on.

Today we had a meeting to brainstorm about our upcoming TEDxPVLD event and 15 enthusiastic people came to share ideas and help make this event happen...and that doesn't count the people who are eager to help but couldn't make today's meeting.  These are staff members who are already stretched thin with their daily workloads but are volunteering to take the time to participate.

I've also been encouraged by the suggestions from employees about how we can cut costs and increase revenue.  People have been willing to put forward ideas that mean more work or even less pay...and I am very aware how hard they are already working and how challenging it is to live in our area on our less-than-lavish salaries.

I've said it before and I'll keep saying it...they are a truly amazing group!  That's why my stomach is in knots at the thought of the inevitable hardship that this budget crisis will impose, and why I will do everything in my power to make laying off employees a truly last resort.  But it's also why I am confident that with everyone pulling together we will make it through this crisis.

To the PVLD staff - you are incredible.  You are making it possible for me to take these few days off with a sense of hope rather than panic....thank you!

Tough times, tough choices

The budget situation for the State of California, and by extension for local governments like PVLD is grim and getting grimmer.  We are faced with continued declines in assessed property values, resulting in flattening or even declining property tax revenues, as well as the near certainty that the State will "borrow" local property tax revenues.

The PVLD staff have already trimmed nearly 10% from our 09/10 budget, and it now looks like we need to cut another 10%.  We've already cut our budget for online databases and for library materials, left several vacant positions unfilled, reduced the budget for staff training, and tightened our belts in a number of other areas...and now it looks like we need to cut as much as an additional $700,000.

My job is to work with staff and the Board of Trustees to come up with a budget that does the least harm to the greatest number of stakeholdersin the short-term while protecting the health and vitality of the library district in the long term.

I've been having some sleepless nights a I wrestle with the tough choices that need to be made.  I don't see any way of balancing the budget without cuts to library open hours; further reductions to the budget for books and other library materials; and higher overdue, DVD rental, meeting room rental, and other fees.  

This will result in reduced services and higher "out of pocket" costs for library users just when they need us most, as evidenced by the rapid growth in library use.  This fiscal year-to-date (July 08 through April 09) PVLD's door count is up 20%, our circulation of library books and other materials is up 16%, and attendance at our programs and events is up 12% compared to the same period last year.

It also will result in hardship for our staff as we will need to freeze compensation; and consider unpaid furloughs to align staffing costs with reduced library open hours; and continue to freeze non-essential vacant positions at the same time that the staff is working harder than ever to keep up with the demand for services, we are asking them to do more to support revenue-generating activities such as the Passport Service, and we are already short-staffed in a number of areas.

As a leader one of my goals (actually I see it as a duty!) is to do all of this without losing community support for the library or hurting staff morale.  This is what keeps me up at night.

My husband manages the Manhattan Beach Library, which is one of the 84 libraries in the Los Angeles County Library System so he is a fairly small cog in a very large wheel.  Not having much influence can be frustrating and most of the time I wouldn't trade my job for his, but this morning we were talking about the budget challenges and he said something like "I guess I'll wait and see what comes down from Library Headquarters, since there's nothing I can do about the situation".  At that moment not being the one who has to make the hard choices seemed pretty good to me! 

Ideas from the Fontana Library

Today I had the privelege fo visiting the beautiful new Fontana Library - a branch of the San Bernardino County Library System.  This $63 million facility opened in April 2008 and has already had more than 1 million visitors. 

We were there to attend a conference of local Friends of the Library groups, but had time to look around the building and take some photos.  It is a light-filled, airy space with lots of seating and computers, a wonderful computer lab and technology lounge area, and terrific spaces for children and teens as well as many smart environmental and technology features.

I couldn't get photos of everything, but here are some of the things that caught my eye.  (Hint - if you click on the little box with four arrows at the bottom right of the slideshow you can see it in full-screen mode, and then click on "show info" on the upper right of the screen to display my descriptions) 

Involving Library Users

One of the things that we seem to find difficult at PVLD (and I suspect in many other libraries and types of organizations) is finding meaningful ways to get input from our library users and our communities not just when we have a big project like remodeling or expanding a library but in our day-to-day development of services. I think in part it is because as professionals librarians feel that they should be able to design services and programs "without help", and perhaps in part because we are a bit afraid of what we might learn.

That's why I found this video of the user engagement processes used by the Arhaus Library in Denmark (one of a number of videos about the amazing Arhaus library and their focus on the design of the user experience- check out this one about teen engagement, too.  Thanks Helene Blowers of LibraryBytes for passing it along. 

I like the structured use of various tools to get input as opposed to ad hoc input the way we tend to do it al PVLD.  Now I'm thinking about ways to use some of these techniques in support of our new Strategic Plan (to be adopted by our Board of Trustees this week).... 

Hope for the future of libraries

This past Wednesday I had the privelege of attending the one year reunion meeting of the Southern California area Eureka Fellows.  The Eureka Leadership program is sponsored by the California State Library as a means of developing future library leaders. Eureka Fellows are selected through  competitive applications process for a year-long leadership development process that starts with a 5-day intensive leadership institute followed by completion of a major grant-funded project over the course of the next year with opportunities for mentoring and follow-up coaching along the way.  I had the privilege of serving as a mentor for the first cohort of Eureka fellows a year ago, and Wednesday's event was the culmination of their journey.  PVLD was also fortunate to have two staff members - Branch Manager Jennifer Addington and Circulation Manager Eve Wittenmyer - selected as Eureka Fellows.

On Wednesday  the participants gave presentations on their projects to their Library Directors and the Eureka facilitators.  I was blown away by both the quality of the work they have done and the marked development in their confidence as leaders.  I knew last year that this was a special bunch of people, and seeing them at the end of the Eureka process reinforced just how special they all are.  The future of libraries is in very good hands!

Apart from the pride I felt watching the presentations, every single one of them gave me a new idea or inspiration.  All of these presentations should be up soon on the Eureka blog soon, but here are some highlights -

• Irma Morales of the Orange Public Library reported on her project to capture the history of the barrio where her branch library is located.  As part of the project she hosted a day-long event where community members were encouraged to share photos for addition to the local history collection, learn about little-known parts of the community's history such as the role it played in desegration of Mexican-Americans, and share their experiences.  What a great way to involve the community in developin local history resources!
• Thea Blair of the Mission Viejo Public Library talked about her project to install a low-vision reader and adaptive workstation for the visually impaired to meet the needs of her aging community.  I had never thought of reaching out to the Lion's Club as a partner to help us serve the visually impaired, but when Thea reminded us of their interest in vision issues it made perfect sense....
• Robin Isaacson of the San Diego County Public Library named her project "Words Gone Wild" and talked about how she is using a new online catalog interface to as she put it "free cataloging information from the constraints of the MARC record" and allow people to search the catalog in ways that make sense to them.  It was a great articulation of why the whole concept of "social cataloging" is important.
• Our own Eve and Jennifer reported on their "Culture Quake" project to transform PVLD's customer service.  For me the eye-opener was how much they've accomplished without me even really knowing what they were up to!  I'm looking forward to seeing the customer service wiki that they have in development.
• Cheryl Eberly of Santa Ana Public Library gave a moving and inspirational talk about her "Circle of Mentoring" project that connects at-risk youth with adult mentors, and also gives the youth the opportunity to mentor younger kids.
• Amanda Schukle of San Diego County Public Library described her project to give librarians data and tools so they can create Customer-Driven Collections.  Amanda has a way with words and I loved her "Dump the Junk" weeding report and "Bang for Your Buck" collection turnover report.
• Patricia Rivera of Buena Park Library District went first and gave an amazing presentation of how her "Library Lures Latinos".  She has done a great job of engaging staff in reaching out to the Latino people who make up a significant part of Buena Park's population.  She had lots of quantitative data to demonstrate the resulting increased library usage by Latinos, but to me the biggest indicator of success was the story she told of a staff member who used to get frustrated about the hesitancy of Latino patrons to speak to staff, until she herself went to the "Spanish for Non-Spanish Speakers" training for library staff and realized how difficult it is to use a language not your own.
• Cara Vera of Rancho Cucamonga described her library's participation the the City of Rancho Cucamonga's "Healthy RC" initiative.  It was a terrific example of the library adapting its existing resources to position itself squarely at the heart of something important to its community.  It also gave me an idea about our library taking the lead to develop a "Healthy PV" initiative.
• Christina Wainwright of San Diego Public Library's project was to use library programs to build long-term relationships with community members instead of "one night stands" where people enjoy a program, but then that's it until the next one they come to.  Her goal is to use library programs to create bonds both between attendees and with the library.  She described her successful "Monday Night Meetup" program where people give "speed book reviews" in "speed dating" format, and then those reviews spark conversations and connections.  She also described how she now evaluates each program in terms of both the level of interactivity between participants that it fosters and the degree to which is anchored to the library's core services, and aims for programs that offer both as these are the ones that foster long-term relationships.  Christina transformed how I am going to look at our PVLD programs in the future.
• Susan Broman of the Los Angeles County Public Library talked about her "Get Up From Behind the Desk" project to encourage and support local efforts to provide adult programming - no easy task in a massive, complex, and tradition-bound library system!  Susan has a talent for developing tools that help librarians do things better and more efficiently, and I have know via my husband, and LA County Community Library Manager, that she is having a major impact and helping transform the entire Adult Services culture at LACPL.  Her staff "What Are We Reading" blog also gave an idea for a similar blog that our staff could write for the community. 
• Polly Cipparone of San Diego County Public Library has developed a "The Future is Now" wiki for staff to share information about change initiatives in her library system.  I thought the idea of allowing employees to post questions and comments anonymously was an great non-threatening way to allow people to engage in the change process.
• Jeannie Kays of the Palm Desert Library (Riverside County Library System) has developed a staff training program that is a model for other libraries.  It has 6 core modules that are repeated every quarter so everyon has a chance to attend.  Training is done by staff volunteers and ranges from Beginning Reference for Non-Reference Staff to Frequently Asked Reference Questions to Using Microsoft Publisher to Create Flyers".  I think we may just steal her work!
• Genesis Hansen of Newport Beach reported on her project to use customer input to drive design of the new library website.  Apart from the very useful content of her presentation, which included examples of how staff perceptions of customer needs can be off base, Genesis had an amazingly crisp and succinct presentation...she also managed to make great progress on her project despite taking time off in the middle of it to have a baby!  I was also pleased that she shared information about her blog, Wrong Again which will now be part of my regular reading.
• Last but not least Andrea Taylor of the Fullerton Public Library presented her "One City One Source" initiative to reach out to city staff and educate them about library services.  She used meetings with each city department to tell them about the library and sign them up for library cards.  This is something we really need to do with our local cities...since we are independent of them they really don't know much about what we offer.

You can see why I was exhausted and exhilirated when I got home on Wednesday night... and why I didn't hesitate to say yes when asked to be a mentor again this year! 

 

State threatens to take local property taxes - impact on library services would be severe

I just received the following message from the California Library Association, and a similar one from the League of California Cities.  Once again the State Legislature is threatening to take local property tax revenues in order to solve its budget crisis.  Property taxes make up about 88% of PVLD's revenues(the rest comes from library fees (e.g. overdue fees, meeting room rental fees), entrepreneurial activities such as our Passport and Notary services, a very small amount of State funding (less than 1% of our budget) and money raised by the Peninsula Friends of the Library.  Flattening property tax revenues have already resulted in significant cuts to our budget for library books and online databases, a hiring freeze, and other budget cuts as well as asking the Friends of the Library to double their level of support.  The loss of a further 8% of our property tax revenues (which would be about $500,000) would be devastating and would mean further slashing of the book budget and cuts to library hours and services.  And these cuts would come at a time when demand for library services is higher than ever as people turn to the library for financial planning and budgeting resources, job search resources, free access to the Internet and much more. 

YOU CAN HELP!  Please contact the Legislators listed at the bottom of the following message and tell them that the proposal to borrow local property tax revenues would be devastating not only to the library but to other local services such as police and fire.  THANK YOU!!!

GOVERNOR’S ADMINISTRATION WARNS:  THE STATE MAY BORROW $2 BILLION FROM LOCAL GOVERNMENTS IF MAY 19^TH BALLOT MEASURES FAIL

 

 

Yesterday the State Department of Finance informed several local government organizations that, with the possibility that the May 19^th ballot initiatives may not be successful, one of the options to address the potential Budget shortfall would be to borrow approximately $2 billion in property taxes from local governments. 

 

The background paper provided during the briefing by the Department of Finance states: 

 

“The constitution allows that up to 8% of local governments’ property tax revenues can be borrowed by the state and repaid within three budget years with interest.  The amount that can be borrowed is determined by the amount of property taxes received by cities, counties, and special districts in the preceding year.  Borrowing from local government in the 2009-10 fiscal year would provide $2.006 billion in solutions.

 

Local governments could borrow against the state’s constitutional obligation to repay, thereby mitigating the impact of this reduction.  However, in the current economic landscape, local governments are not easily finding available short term financing and could face difficulties borrowing these funds from the market.  If they borrow, local government will incur substantial borrowing costs.” 

 

The Department of Finance also acknowledges that there would be varying affects on local governments as it “will, in part, depend on the ability of local government to obtain borrowing from the market.  This reduction could result in cuts to locally funded services such as police and fire, waste collection, road maintenance, libraries and other services.”

 

As you will recall, Proposition 1A in 2004, provided certain protections for cities, counties, and special districts against future raids of their property taxes, for the purpose of balancing the state Budget.  However, contained in Proposition 1A was a caveat, which allows the state, beginning in 2008-09, to “suspend” the prohibition on taking local property taxes if the Governor proclaims a “significant State fiscal hardship” and gets the Legislature to agree by a 2/3rds vote.   If you are interested, the legislation spelling out the terms of Proposition 1A is contained in SCA 4 (2004) and SB 1096 – a Budget trailer bill from 2004.

 

Last year, during the very difficult and protracted Budget deliberations, there was an ongoing threat that the Budget deal would include borrowing property taxes from cities, counties, and special districts.  Thanks to opposition from affected groups, the proposal was not included in the final Budget agreement.  As you may be reading, and it is particularly indicative in early polling data, there is a strong likelihood that several, if not all of the ballot measures will fail on May 19^th,  resulting in a $6 billion loss in revenue, primarily from the loss of $5 billion in lottery securitization funds (Proposition 1C).  Coupled with the $8 billion shortfall already projected by the Legislative Analyst’s Office, there will be an immediate $14 billion hole in the state Budget.   Some Republican members of the legislature have stressed that “taxes will not be an option this time around” and thus, the legislature will be looking to solutions such as cuts, borrowing, and increased fees.  Please take a moment today to write the Governor and the four legislative leaders, as well as your own Senator and Assemblymember(s) to encourage their opposition to any proposal that would borrow property taxes from cities, counties, and special districts.  In your letters, please indicate how your Budgets are already stretched thin, and that you could not endure a deep and significant cut, such as the one the Governor’s Department of Finance is suggesting.

 

The Honorable

Arnold

Schwarzenegger

Governor, State of

California

State Capitol

Sacramento

,

CA

.  95814

 

The Honorable Darrell Steinberg

Senate President pro Tempore

Room 205

State Capitol

Sacramento

,

CA

.  95814

 

The Honorable Dennis Hollingsworth

Senate Republican Leader

Room 305

State Capitol

Sacramento

,

CA

.  95814

 

The Honorable Karen Bass

Speaker of the

California

Assembly

Room 219

State Capitol

Sacramento

,

CA

.  95814

 

The Honorable Mike Villines

Assembly Republican Leader

Room 3104

State Capitol

Sacramento

,

CA

.  95814