Jun 13th, 2003
American City and County magazine
American City and County magazine has a very interesting article here by Steve Coffman about Library funding. He suggests that just as public broadcasting companies and museums now must do, that Public Libraries tap into major funding resources other than taxes. The brief historical background he provides in this regard is interesting, but with thought, may give you pause and may even be a tad scary.
While I totally agree that we should pursue alternate forms of additional funding for our Public Libraries, the key word here is *additional*. If a Library receives a grant from a local business or from a fund drive, it must be clear to those participating in the donation that the monies collected are to be used for a specific project (new furniture, computers, bookmobile, etc) rather than regular operating costs.
Encouraging Libraries to seek creative, non-traditional *additional* funding opportunities is very practical and definitely something Libraries would be wise to consider doing (those that aren?t already). Sadly, this additional money is often already a necessity in order to simply offer the services the public needs when it comes to expansion or service. However, this is the case mostly when it comes to new, unique projects.
Here?s the counterpoint to Mr. Coffman?s article: the societal benefits provided by our Public Libraries outweigh even those of our goodly institutions like museums and public broadcasting organizations. Simply stated, that is why the idea of moving from the traditional Public Library funding base of taxes is unwise. Steve is very accurate in asserting that Libraries needs more monies in order to keep up and *gasp* even grow. His suggested methods for obtaining additional funding are also exciting and worth pursuing. However, losing a more stable, traditional funding base that is highly supported as such would be a big mistake.
Jenny over at The Shifted Librarian writes along the funding/budget cuts theme in this very thoughtful post. I agree with her about not getting political in my blog, but you never know when Laura Bush is going to stop by and be inspired by one of our posts. *snicker*
5 Responses to “American City and County magazine”
Yo MP! I wanted to throw a link to this post on one of my blogs, but your archives don’t seem to be working, because the “permalink” just gave me an Error 404.
Gimmie a minute here…. It’ll get fixed soon.
Ohhhh, you’re using Blogger. That explains it. Some Blogger sites don’t automatically republish their archive pages when you post a new entry. You have to go to the Archive screen in your Blogger account and manually click Republish All. This happens with my library blog, and it’s one of the reasons I abandoned the idea of moving my personal blog over to Blogger.
hey there - haven’t talked to you in ages! but i like what you wrote about that article. i remember in grad school learning that public libraries support our democracy by supplying free information to the voters so that they may make informed decisions about their government (and their lives). i have never forgotten this. public libraries are integral to our country and if we stop funding them properly we tax dollars, then we may as well throw away the constitution and our individual rights as well. oh wait, maybe that’s already happening? sometimes i wonder who it is that is actually threatening our freedom… but that’s another topic altogether.
Nice to hear from you, Donna! You enforce the point well. In fact, that sort of idea is the main reason this blog is even running in the first place. It seems that if a person has ever spent much time in a Library, they support the Library. Fortunately that means most students and parents. You wouldn’t imagine the issue will get pushed too far simply because of the broad public support, but it seems that attacks on $ keep happening.