[Publib] Re: Charging patrons for programs

[Su Epstein]

This raises an interesting question in the age of no budget.

Is it worse to charge a nominal fee, and perhaps offer a way for those with
limited funds to not have to pay the fee, but have some kind of program...
Or
To not have ANY programming because there is no funding for it?

I don't know about the legalities in CT (yet), but I'm not opposed to the
idea of charging provided there is a non offensive way that those who can't
afford it could still take part.  We've also had patron's suggest programs
with nominal fees to help raise funds.

In an ideal world, I'd like to see it not happen, I'd like to see the
Utilities understand the concept of FREE library and provide their services
to us freely, but since they don't... It's a hard choice:  heat or ...?

Su

Su Epstein, Ph.D.
Library Director
Saxton B. Little Free Library
Columbia, CT 06237

-----Original Message-----
From: publib-bounces at webjunction.org [mailto:publib-bounces at webjunction.org]
On Behalf Of Larry T. Nix
Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2008 3:30 PM
To: publib at webjunction.org
Subject: [Publib] Re: Charging patrons for programs

It is illegal to charge fees for library programs or any other public
library service in Wisconsin.  Charging fees for library services runs
counter to the concept of the free public library which dates back to the
establishment of the Peterborough Town Library in New Hampshire 175 years
ago (see http://www.libraryhistorybuff.org/peterborough.htm).  Any fee
serves as a deterent to library use which is the opposite of what public
libraries should want to happen. This would be especially repungnant for
library programs for children.  Hopefully there aren't any public libraries
that would resort to this approach to library funding.

Larry

Larry T. Nix
Library History Buff
3605 Niebler Lane
Middleton, WI 53562
nix at libraryhistorybuff.org
http://www.libraryhistorybuff.org

Message: 5
Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 13:48:18 -0400
From: Beth <beth.borene at gmail.com>
Subject: [Publib] Charging patrons for programs
To: publib at webjunction.org
Message-ID:
<849b393f0804011048p85745c7lb45155475e448ff3 at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Hi All-

Please excuse cross posting.

In this age of budget cuts, my library system is considering charging
patrons a nominal entrance fee to attend library programming to help offset
the cost of the professional performers/teachers (because we just don't have
the staff to do all programming in house and the system cannot seem to
arrive at a reasonable maximum performance fee). Personally I think this
idea won't wash very well for the more urban part of our demographic, but I
was curious to see if this is becoming more common nowadays.

*Has any other library begun charging patrons entrance/nominal fees to
attend a library sponsored program? What are your good and bad experiences
with this? How did you implement it and explain it to your patrons? How did
your patrons react?

*Also, how many of you offer computer classes to your patrons? How many of
you charge them a fee to attend those classes? I'm looking for reasoning to
keep teaching computer classes at the library - our community services
director is now rethinking offering computer classes in the library at all.

Thanks in advance (as always) for all of your help! Feel free to shoot me an
email at the address below.

--
Beth Borene
Youth Services Librarian
beth.borene at gmail.com




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