Borrowed Books, Borrowed Time

As cities face uncertain economies, more are looking to limit library branches, hours, and budgets.

A USAToday story cites library closures in Phoenix, Philadelphia, and Muncie, Indiana — America's tester town! — and says that at the same time "more adults are using free internet services to search for jobs or apply for unemployment benefits, and more peole are economizing by borrowing books, DVDs, and CDs."

"Cities are making tough choices, says Chris Hoene, director of policy and research at the National League of Cities. As people lose income or curb spending, income tax and sales tax revenue falls. Local officials must choose between core services, such as police and fire protection, and services such as libraries and parks.

'Obviously, when push comes to shove,' he says, city governments facing budget cuts 'will protect city services considered more vital to the safety of the community.'"

So far, the Memphis Public Library isn't facing cuts, but both the number of customers and library-card applicants are up since last year.

Cover to Cover

The Memphis Public Library & Information Center's 2006-2007 Annual Report just landed on my desk and, boy, it is a page turner!

Okay, not really, mostly it just looks to be a round-up of stories from the library system's newsletters, but I did scan it thoroughly. (And, yes, it is called "The Mall for your Mind.")

The report touts the summer reading program, the adult enrichment series, and the library's participation in a Bill & Melinda Gates foundation funded study called Making Cities Stronger: Public Libraries' Contributions to Local Economic Development.

It also includes the library's balance sheet for 2007: $15 million in funding from the city, $700,000 from the county, $950,000 from Bartlett and Millington combined, and $74,000 from the feds.

Fines and fees make up just a little more than $1 million in revenue, or about 6 percent of the library's overall income.

The foundation for the library comes up with just over another million in donations, grants, and bookstore/cafe revenue.

On the expense side, personnel accounts for $13.7 million, or more than 82 percent, of costs.

It looks like they spend $842,000 on materials, but it doesn't break that down to books, magazines, or computers.

Most interesting was probably the branch updates. For instance, there was a small note about staff from the Levi Branch library visiting local schools and daycares to encourage children to read.

Downtown's Cossitt branch was mentioned for its unique Wednesday afternoon lunch series. Poplar-White Station was noted for its Second Thursday Lecture Series.

Gaston Park has a partnership with Opera Memphis — the opera comes to the branch once a month between September and May for storytelling, dance, theater, and opera (natch) activities and the branch averages about 70 children for each activity.

You might remember that Levi, Gaston Park, Cossit, and Poplar-White Station was four of the five libraries slated for closure by Mayor Willie Herenton before the City Council took those cuts off the table. (Highland was the other library that was in danger of being closed.)

If you're interested in reading up on the subject, here are two columns I did about the proposed closures.

And here is a story I did about the library system at the beginning of the year after the retirement of longtime library head Judith Drescher.

Here is a column I wrote after Herenton appointed his new deputy director of the library.

The report also says that LINC/2-1-1 staff answered more than 15,000 calls from July 2006 to June 2007, an increase of 415 percent from the previous year. I assume that part of the increase stems from the public awareness campaign to get citizens to call 2-1-1 with their everyday questions instead of 9-1-1.

another library update

It looks as if the City Council wants to save four of the five library branches that the mayor wanted to close.

I don't want to seem ungrateful, but um, they missed one.

I know, Cossitt is not the nicest library out there. To say the least. But it's the downtown library! In a downtown that is still working on revitalization! And in a downtown that has more residential space than many other cities!

I get that it doesn't meet the standard of a downtown library, but maybe the answer is a little re-investment instead of shutting it down outright. Maybe even re-locating it to a smaller space?

Then again, I harbor a secret belief that a downtown without a movie theater or a library isn't a real downtown. So maybe it's just me.

On another note, here's some good news: The library has informed me that they've talked to the state and, with the board of trustee nominations going before the City Council June 3rd, they should be fine to receive their state funding.

library update

As I wrote this week, a group of professional librarians have a few concerns about the Memphis public library system.

One of their concerns is the deterioration or dismantling of the library board of trustees, ostensibly a group that would provide checks and balances to city decisions about the library. I talked to Jeanne Sugg, Tennessee state librarian and archivist, and she thought perhaps board members' terms expired and the members were never re-appointed, but she wasn't sure.

What Sugg did say was that the Memphis public library needs to have a seven-member board in place by the end of this month to receive $45,000 in state funding.

I got a call today from a communications person at the library and she said they are currently compiling a list of nominations for the seven-member board.

Those nominations will come before the City Council in June, and the names of the nominees will be released to the public then.

I asked about the effect that would have on the state funding, but she said she didn't know the implications.

Book Club

A group of local librarians are fighting against what they call a "crisis situation" at the Memphis Public Library and Information Center.

The group — calling themselves Librarians for Memphis Public Library — cite Mayor Willie Herenton's appointment of two non-librarians to run the system, the proposed closures of five public library branches, and the dissolution of the library's board of trustees as a few of the things they are upset about.

Herenton and his administration have said that the library does not need a professional librarian at its head — something many professional librarians strongly disagree with — but that it simply needs a good manager.

I don't want to go into all the background — feel free to read two stories I've written on the library changes here, here, and here — but I don't see any winners in this situation. Surely not longtime library head Judith Drescher. Not new head Keenon McCloy. And certainly not the general public who use the library.

We're having a hard enough time educating the region's young people, and here we're talking about shutting down resources where people can read books, work on the computer, and explore new things, all essentially for free. I get that the closures can save the city $2 million (at the high end) but how much are they going to cost us in the long run?