Drastic cuts to public library services are being considered in cities such as Oakland and San Jose. This discussion on KQED's Forum program is not short, but it gives an excellent overview of the role libraries play in communities (and schools), as well as different funding models. Worth the listen!
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A couple of years ago Joan Frye Williams and George Needham did an April Fools Podcast about a mythical commercial library that they allegedly encountered on a road trip.
Turns out that in India that idea isn't so far-fetched according to this post on Bangalore's Citizen Matters blog describing how Indian entrepreneurs have responded to the fact that India's public libraries fall short of their U.S. counterparts with regard to what we would consider basic services - from up-to-date collections to welcoming spaces to story times...by creating for-profit libraries that offer these things and more.
Looking at the websites for some of the libraries profiled in the Citizen Matters post I was surprised by the ingenuity of the business models.
Eloor, which was founded over 30 years ago and has five branches across India, is at this point a strictly physical library although it plans to offer an online catalog and Internet-based services soon. Members pay a deposit plus a "reading fee" of 10% of the purchase price of the book (or more if the book is kept more than the 14 day loan period). The reading fee is the library's source of revenue, while the deposit is to ensure that books are returned and is refunded in full if the membership is closed. The amount of the deposit determines how many items the customer is allowed to check out at any given time. People who choose not to become members can borrow books without paying the deposit, but they have to deposit the full purchase price of the book which seems to be refunded (less the reading fee) when the book is returned.
Mylib.in is a hybrid physical and online library offering both a reading room (I loved the description from their website - "a comfortable reading space surrounded by books which gives the age old charm of "Reading in a Library". We feel great when families spend their weekend afternoon in our library or when school kids drop by after their school or when executives laze around in the bean bags after their office hours to catch up on the business magazines.") and an online catalog of items that can eithre be picked up at the library or delivered to (and collected from) home or office within 2 days. Much like Netflix, Mylib.in offers a variety of pricing plans to meet different needs from "pay per book" to various combinations of membership terms (3 month, six month, etc.) and number of items that can be checked out simultaneously.
"Easy Library" seems fairly similar to Mylib.in with regard to how it operates (combination of physical space and online/delivery) but with a fee structure more like Eloor's. Easy Library also offers events like story times for kids and author talks.
Then there is Just Books - similar to Easy Library and Mylibrary.in with regard to services but a franchise business model with 13 locations across Bangalore and opportunities to open franchises in other cities.
Private "children's libraries" are a niche in their own right, with libraries such as Out of the Box and Discover Kids Library offering physical libraries, collections of books, magazines, puzzles, and toys, reading enrichment, outreach to schools, and other services typical of an American public library's Children's Services department.
Browsing all of these websites really made me think about both our public library services and our funding models here in the U.S. While I firmly believe in the value of libraries as a public institution, I think we could learn from what is happening in India. Could we too offer Netflix-style home delivery if people were willing to pay for it? Is a pay-per-use model really so bad? What about charging extra for value-added or priority service?
Some of these are ideas we've tossed around here at PVLD, but learning about India's private libraries made me realize that they are not just concepts, they are viable business and service models. Definitely food for thought!
As they say in Australia, you would have to be "blind Freddy" not to know that California is facing a budget crisis of epic proportions, or that libraries across the country are being forced to close branches and drastically curtail services as a result of local government shortfalls.
Here at PVLD we've been relatively fortunate, and have managed to make it through the economic downturn so far thanks in no small part to the efforts our employees have made to find new sources of revenue (Passport services, notary services, exam proctoring services....all provided by existing staff in addition to their usual jobs) and curtail spending. Woe betide the person who accidentally leaves colored paper in the photocopier causing the next staff member who uses it to waste a few sheets when they find their document has been printed on yellow or sky blue!
Given the above, it truly irks me when I see examples of other government agencies (and sometimes other libraries) doing things that seem to me to be plain wasteful.
A case in point from this morning: I opened a manila envelope mailed from the California Department of Developmental Services and addressed to me, and inside found a 255 page printed copy of the "Lanterman Developmental Disabilities Services Act and Related Laws". No letter of instruction, just the book. I can only assume that a copy was sent to every Library Director in California with the intention of having us add it to the library collection.
I may just be having a bad day, but I find it really difficult to believe that anyone thought this was a good or appropriate use of taxpayer funds...not because I have any concern about dissemintaing information pertinent to people with developmental disabilities, but because it surely would be much cheaper to make a document like this available digitally via the Internet rather than incurring the expense of printing thousands of copies, preparing them for mailing (envelopes, mailing labels, staff time), and mailing them (even at bulk rates)....especially at a time when services to the developmentally disabled are threatened with drastic cuts?
Furthermore, If asked for information about laws relating to people with developmental disabilities, I'm pretty sure that the first place our librarians would look is on the Internet, not in the library catalog. In fact, as we undergo a comprehensive review of our collection, it is precisely items like these (highly specialized, too flimsy to be circulated, and with contents that are readily available online) that are being weeded. If the librarians did decide that an item such as this should be added to the collection, it actually would cost PVLD a not insignificant sum to catalog it and label it, and get it ready for the shelf.
I don't mean to single out the Department of Development Services....today's mailing is just the latest in a string of similar unsolicited "gifts" of printed booklets, pamphlets, and flyers from various State agencies. I know that the total expense of all of these mailings is a drop in the bucket of the overall budget deficit, but surely it would be better to use the money to actually provide services to those in need rather than send out a barrage of information and hope that it somehow connects with someone who is looking for it.
And public libraries aren't immune from this kind of behavior. Each month I receive a multiple page, full-color, glossy newsletter from the Queens Library in New York describing all of their (admittedly fine) programs and events...and more recently making a plea for support as they face their own severe budget cuts and library closures. I can only assume that the newsletter is sent to every Library Director in the country, since I certanly never requested it. Usually receipt of the newsletter is followed a day or two later by another mailing from Queens suggesting that, for a fee, they would be willing to help PVLD with our marketing needs.
Huh? How can it possiby be a good use of library funds to do a mass mailing of a very expensive marketing piece that is clearly aimed primarly at the Queens community to Library Directors nationwide? Surely that money would be better spent on library services and programs...and if this is their marketing approach I question what real value we would get from their consulting services.
So that is my whinge for the day.... I know I am probably just in a craby mood, and the intentions of the people who think this stuff up are really good, but I needed to get it off of my chest! Thanks for listening...
There is a seemingly endless stream of alerts about proposed cuts to library funding (whether local, state or federal) flowing across Library Association email lists, Facebook pages, and Twitter feeds...and each new alert accompanied by a plea to contact legislators and tell them how wonderful libraries are and why it is a mistake to cut our funding.
In that context I found this blog post by Nancy Dowd on her "M Word" blog particularly compelling.
As she so rightly points out, the people whose support we need to enlist are our community members...and many of them are facing serious fiscal crises of their own. When families are facing pay cuts, layoffs, increased healthcare costs, and in some places tax hikes they truly do need to be convinced that the "sacrifice of having to pay taxes to support my library is worth it to my family if you want my support."
As Nancy so eloquently points out, this means telling the stories about the real difference we make in people's lives...not spouting platitudes or reeling off statistics.
This was brought home to me again at an excellent fundraising leadership development workshop (part of the Annenberg Foundation's Alchemy program) that I had the privilege of attending as part of a team from the Peninsula Friends of the Library this week. We spent some time at the workshop trying to hone our 3-5 minute "pitch" about why a donor should give to the Friends. We were with a couple of dozen other non-profits, and it was clear that the most compelling pitches were those that conveyed how the organization transformed lives.
This is an area where most libraries, and I count PVLD among them, really could do better. We need to talk about the seriously ill woman who is so grateful to one of our librarians for the help she has gotten in researching her condition that she has sent not one but two bouquets of flowers over the past months; about the people who use our computers to write their resumes and send in online job applications because it is the only computer access they have; about the child transformed from reluctant to avid reader thanks to the patience of the childrens' librarians who worked hard to find him a book that captured his imagination.
Even better we need to get those people whose lives we have transformed to tell their own stories - loudly and publicly!
Definitely something I am going to think about as part of the ongoing Alchemy process and our library marketing efforts.
This Huffington Post article by Scott Turow about the importance of public libraries says it all! Thank you Patrick Sweeney for sharing....I just love the love the description of libraries as "first responders" for the unemployed.
As is to be expected, public libraries across the State are mobilizing to protest California Governor Jerry Brown's proposal to eliminate all State funding to support local public library services. As an indicator of the level of concern, my earlier blog posts attempting to explain the impact of these cuts received far and away more hits than anything else I have written.
While like all of my colleagues I am concerned about the impact of the proposed cuts, I am also concerned that all too often our message has a "motherhood and apple pie" flavor that might be more reflective of our own beliefs and aspirations than the perceptions of people outside the library community (and by library community I mean not only librarians and others who work in libraries, but Friends of the Library groups, other library supporters, and our regular users).
Last week, for example, Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters wrote about the cuts to library funding. The article is a good overview of the history of State funding for libraries, but what was of more interest to me were comments. Interspersed with many comments about the value of libraries were statements such as these:
What struck me about these comments was not that they are totally off base, but that in fact there is at least a grain of truth in all of them...the very grains of truth that likely led Governor Brown to think that eliminating State funding for libraries is an acceptable move in the face of overwhelming budget pressures. What worries me is that, true believers that we are, the library community may dismiss or disregard these points of view rather than really listening to what these people are trying to say...and not just so we can tell them how wrong they are.
The thought that we need to be careful not to let our desire to "make our case" overrun the need to take on board legitimate criticism has been niggling away at me since the budget discussion has heated up. Today I found a great articulation of why this is important - not in a library publication but in a Harvard Business Review blog post called Ten Things You're Not Allowed to Say at Davos shared by George Needham on Viral Optimism earlier today.
George notes that the all 10 things that HBR guest blogger Umar Haique identifies as needing to be discussed would make a heck of a library conference topic, and I agree, but I was particularly struck by #6:
"Your Mom tends to tell you what you want to hear.
Davos loves diversity — as long as said diversity doesn't carry the terrifying prospect of actually generating perspectives that question the primacy of the obsolete, crumbling paradigm known as industrial age capitalism. But here's the thing: especially in a time when your fundamental assumptions are breaking, it's probably your fiercest critics — not your compatriots — who have the sharpest, most resonant insights."
I wonder which of our most cherished beliefs about the value of libraries are, when seen by an outsider, an "obsolete, crumbling paradigm"? If we don't, as Mr. Haque suggests, listen to our fiercest critics and not our compatriots, we risk not just telling the wrong stories but doing the wrong things with consequences that are greater than the loss of $30 million in funding.
This article from the USC Annenberg School of Communications Neon Tommy blog describes the real human impact of cuts to library hours and services better than I ever could.
It is true that PVLD serves communities very different from many of those served by the Los Angeles city and county library systems in terms of average income and demographics, but for many of our patrons, just as for those described in the article, the library is a place of refuge, a place of opportunity, and a home.
Each day people gather outside the doors of the Peninsula Center Library waiting for it to open, and each day the staff greets the same familiar faces - the retired gentlemen who come to read the financial press and kibbitz with each other and the staff, the people who come every day to use the computers to look for work or communicate with friends and family, and the parents and caregivers bringing little ones to story time.
At Malaga Cove Library a regular coterie of patrons come each day to read the newspapers and magazines, chat with staff members who have become friends, play chess, or visit with volunteers Pat and Gene down in the book sale area. With its new Computer Mezzanine Malaga also has plenty of regulars who come each day to look for work, work on distance-learning programs, or surf the Internet.
At all of the libraries, but particularly Miraleste, Peninsula Center, and the Annex the after school hours bring hundreds of students, sometimes accompanied by parents or tutors. At the Annex and Miraleste the after-school crowd is made up mostly of middle school students who are too old for day care,too young to go home to an empty house, and whose parents are struggling financially just to keep their kids in our excellent schools. For them, and their parents, the library is a haven - a safe place to be with friends, hang out, play some games, and maybe get a bit of homework done. Peninsula Center is a magnet for high school students who need access to more sophisticated materials for their homework, and want to study in groups or work on group projects.
As school library hours, collections, and services fall victim to the unrelenting budget pressures faced by our local school district the public library increasingly serves as the de facto school library and our longstanding role in assisting with schoolwork is only growing just as our budget for purchasing the books and other materials to meet this need is shrinking.
And yes, at all of our libraries even in affluent Palos Verdes we have people who are lonely, socially isolated and even homeless for whom the library is a safe place to wile away the hours and be in the company of other human beings.
For many people, for many reasons, the public library is a lifeline. When funding shrinks, the lifeline frays...and as the Neon Tommy post points out, the consequences are greater than many people realize.
Thanks to everyone who reposted and gave feedback on my post about the Governor's budget. It has become by far my most read blog post ever!
I wanted to point out that there is one more potential consequence to what Governor Brown has proposed.
The California State Library receives Federal funds via the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) and in turn redirects those funds to local libraries and library organizations via grants. The Eureka Leadership Program that I have blogged about before? Funded by LSTA. Infopeople, which provides low cost training to the staff of California libraries? Funded by LSTA. Califa, which among other functions negotiates purchasing discounts for California libraries and supports projects using emerging technologies? Funded by LSTA. PVLD's grant-funded access to the Brainfuse live homework help service and the Career Transitions job search online resource? Funded by LSTA.
So...what does the State budget have to do with these Federal funds? It's simple. States only get access to LSTA funds if they provide a certain level of State support for public libraries. Eliminate all State funding for local public libraries? Put our LSTA funds at risk.
Unintended consequences...they'll bite you every time.
With the release of Governor Jerry Brown's budget proposal on Monday I have had a number of questions about the impact on PVLD and on public libraries in California.
The budget proposal eliminates, with some very minor exceptions, all General Fund funding for public libraries. The California State Library will continue to be funded at a reduced level in order to continue its mission of preserving California's history and cultural heritage, but with very limited exceptions State funding for local library services is eliminated.
Local public libraries may receive State Funds through several legislative channels, and each has a slightly different impact.
Public Library Foundation (PLF)
PLF provides a very small amount of per capita funding (in recent years it has been in the neighborhood of $0.30 per resident per year, down over 75% since its peak a decade or so ago) for library services to every local jurisdiction that meets a threshold level of local matching funding for its libraries.
PVLD receives approximately $25,000 in PLF funds. For us the loss of the funds will certainly have a meaningful impact, especially in the face of falling property tax revenues, but in the scope of a $6.5 million budget the impact is fairly small.
PLF is more meaningful for many City and County libraries because it represents a source of funding that must be spent on library services and cannot be redirected. In difficult budget times such as these a number of jurisdictions rely on entirely on PLF to fund their purchases of library materials. For these libraries the impact on the communities they serve will be significant.
California Library Services Act (CLSA)
CLSA was enacted many years ago to foster inter-library cooperation and resource sharing. The Act provides funds several important programs that benefit local communities.
Transaction-Based Reimbursement (TBR) reimburses public libraries for a small portion of the costs of providing services to non-residents from other California communities. TBR has two components - reimbursement of some of the costs of providing materials to patrons of other libraries via Inter-Library Loan and reimbursement for some of the costs of providing "over the counter" services to non-residents who make use of a library other than in the community where they live.
PVLD is expected to receive approximately $40,000 in TBR funds this fiscal year. As with PLF the loss of this funding will have a meaningful impact, but it is relatively small in the context of the overall budget.
Because of the way it is structured the loss of TBR will have a disproportionate impact on libraries whose collections make them more likely to be a "net lender" of Inter-Library Loan materials (for example the Los Angeles Public Library with its research collections) or whose locations give rise to more use by non-residents.
One of the risks with the elimination of the TBR funding is that local jurisdictions will be more reluctant to serve non-residents and we may see introduction of non-resident fees or simply denial of service to non-residents. While on the one hand this may seem like a good thing for residents of communities like Palos Verdes who enjoy top-level library services and may not want to share them, the downside is that it could also prevent the many PV community members who currently are able to use other libraries in the South Bay when convenient or who work downtown and make use of the central Los Angeles Public Library from doing so.
CSLA also provides funding for Cooperative Library Systems such as the Southern California Library Cooperative (SCLC) of which PVLD is a member. Under CSLA the cooperative library systems receive dedicated funding support the cost of providing communications and delivery systems that enable the sharing of resources through interlibrary loans and the rapid interchange of information by telephone, fax, U.S. Mail, courier services, and van deliveries. In recent fiscal years, over 1.7 million messages and nearly 8.6 million items have been delivered between California libraries with the support of this program.
PVLD patrons directly benefit from the SCLC delivery service when they order an item from another SCLC library and it is delivered to our library within a few days.
CLSA also provides funding for the cooperative library systems to provide what is known as "second level reference" to member libraries. PVLD patrons benefit because the SCLC reference center, housed at the Los Angeles Public Library, is a resource for PVLD librarians to respond to highly specialized reference questions; get access to the information in costly and specialized databases that would be unaffordable for us to access directly; and get access to special collections not accessible via traditional Inter-Library Loan such as the Los Angeles Public Library's collection of sheet music.
Apart from the delivery and reference services provided by the cooperative library systems, they provide an important mechanism for networking and collaboration between libraries. In the case of SCLC this includes supporting committees and interest groups to discuss topics of common interest (e.g. technology, children's services, etc.) providing training, and facilitating joint grant applications that benefit all member libraries (this year PVLD is benefitting from a system-wide grant that is funding a job-search online service for all member libraries).
The loss of CLSA funding puts the future of the cooperative library systems at risk, and the resulting loss of delivery and reference services, training, and opportunities for collaboration would have a direct impact on PVLD's services to our patrons.
California Library Literacy and English Acquisition Services Program
This program provides a miniscule amount of funding to support English-language literacy programs in public libraries. The name of the program is somewhat misleading as it seems to indicate that this is an English as a Second Language (ESL) program when in fact it is for developing English-language literacy skills and the primary beneficiaries are native English speakers who have been failed by the formal education system.
The actual literacy training is nearly always delivered by volunteers. Libraries who receive funds under this program typically use them to support a paid program administrator and/or for the purchase of materials such as workbooks.
PVLD does not receive funding under this program, but for those communities that struggle with educational achievement the programs supported by these funds are tremendously important.
In summary, public libraries across the State were braced for significant funding cuts. I don't think anyone expected that libraries would be exempt from the cuts that are being made across all categories of the State budget. That said, the total elimination of ALL State support for local library services is a shock.
In terms of direct budget impact on local jurisdictions, for many of us it is not huge....but the possible unintended consequences might be. If the end result is the dismantling of the systems that enable library jurisdictions to share resources and take advantage of economies of scale (such as through the inter-library delivery program) or allow residents of our communities to make use of libraries that are most convenient to their work or school then the loss will be far beyond the $30.4 million that is being cut from the budget.
We'll be watching the budget process closely and I'll use this blog for updates as appropriate
This coming weekend marks the 15th anniversary of the monthly Peninsula Friends of the Library book sales at the Peninsula Center Library (not the first book sale for the Library District - those began at the Malaga Cove Library many years ago).
According to volunteer John Stolpestad, who along with his wife Lore manages the Peninsula Center Library book sales and devotes hundreds of hours of volunteer time to the sales each year, the 180 book sales that have taken place over the course of those 15 years have generated an amazing $1,576,000 in revenue!
The first sales in November and December 1995 brought in $5,000 and $3,600 respectively and that number has grown to well over $10,000 each month. That number grew to a record $15,620 generated by the September 2010 sale.
In 1996, the first full year of operation for the Peninsula Center sale, $57,000 was raised. John reports that total sales for 2010 are projected to reach $150,000 - an all-time high.
These amazing results would not be possible without the generous donations of high-quality books that we receive from the community. More importantly they would not be possible without the thousands of hours of volunteer time contributed by a large number of volunteers over the years. It takes a huge effort to sort, organize, price and sell the books and this is done entirely by volunteers.
All of the funds raised by the Friends of the Library book sales are dedicated to enhancing the services and programs of our PVLD libraries. WIthout the revenues generated by the book sales at all of our libraries (monthly sales at Peninsula Center and Malaga Cove and the perpetual sale at Miraleste), the Library Shop, and the other fundraising activities of the Friends our communities would not enjoy Sunday library hours at Peninsula Center Library, the many special programs and events we offer each month, or access to state of the art technology and facilities. Our collection of books, magazines, movies, CDs and online resources would also be much poorer.
To everyone who has had a part in making the Peninsula Center Library book sales such a success - congratulations on 15 outstanding years, and a heartfelt thank you!
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