[Publib] ALA and Funding AND RE: ILL infrastructure

Fri Feb 20 16:58:03 EST 2009

The comments about small libraries is interesting. Massachusetts
Congressman (and Speaker of the House) Tip O'Neill once said: "All
politics is local." When the funding for libraries is primarily local
(and primarily property taxes), then the decisions are made at the local
level.

In New England, there is no County government and people there often
think that regionalism is a bad word. I was surprised to discover that
the same view was true in Wisconsin, where there is a well developed
county government, but very few county library systems.

For both areas (and Wisconsin was originally settled by a lot of New
Englanders - 3 of the first 4 governors of Wisconsin were born in
Connecticut) the library movement caught on quickly, and therefore there
are many libraries with 100+ histories.

Here in Louisiana, I was surprised to learn that in 1925 there were only
a handful of public libraries. That is when the state library was
founded. Since then, every parish (county) save one has parish-wide
library service, and that parish has several community-based libraries.
It seems to me that there is some more efficiency which has come with
not being first.

However, funding is still an issue. And let's face it, those who provide
the funds (a property owners in a municipality through property taxes,
or a county/parish through a dedicated levy or even sales tax) want to
control the process.

State library agencies can lead, sometimes offer carrots or sticks, but
do not have the funding stream to force local changes. On a national
scale it is even more mind-boggling to consider.

So.....I had the words above all saved in a draft, and then I got Joe
Schallan's message (pasted at the end here...)

The whole ILL dilemma, and the situation Joe describes simply
illustrates my point about the services being provided based on funding
and when the funding is local and fragmented, then services are.
HOWEVER, there are areas (loosely defined confederations), regions, and
even states which provide good levels of service for ILL and delivery,
and others which do not. In Wisconsin, I could get any title in my
regional system in a day or two. [And I would even note that the
10-county automation consortium filled holds from the next returned
item, no matter which library owned it.] Even in Connecticut, with a
delivery system that was stretched to its limit, it did not take long to
get an item delivered. I know that here in Louisiana there is a delivery
system, but I am still blissfully unaware of how effective it is.
Connecticut and Louisiana state libraries provide the delivery service.
Connecticut's was (maybe still is) a mix between a state library
employee system and a commercial contract. Louisiana's is a commercial
contract. In Wisconsin, the regional delivery system was contracted out,
but deliveries between regions was provided by one of the regions. There
are models. Those in the field need to lobby for what is truly needed.

I am now going to stop thinking about this. I am off on a holiday for a
bit (it is Mardi Gras, and unless you live here - and I know some of you
do - you have no idea what it is like). I'll rejoin the conversation in
March!

And thanks for the votes of confidence!

Michael

Michael A. Golrick

Public Library Consultant

State Library of Louisiana

mgolrick at slol.lib.la.us <mailto:mgolrick at slol.lib.la.us> 

ALA Councilor-at-Large, Candidate for ALA Council 2009 (Please vote for
me)

________________________________

From: publib-bounces at webjunction.org
[mailto:publib-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Karen Schneider
Sent: Friday, February 20, 2009 9:30 AM
To: James Casey
Cc: Michael Golrick; publib at webjunction.org
Subject: Re: [Publib] ALA and Funding

Having run one of those Barbie Dream libraries, I concur on the
statement that "most of those are so small they should be branches."
This is no aspersion to the many great library directors and staff at
these libraries, it's a simple economy of fact. I remember finding a
pile of paperwork when my library was founded where they considered
being a branch, but no, the town wanted to have "its" library. Which of
course was never properly funded. 

Furthermore, thinking about user services/delivery, to start to think in
terms of centralized mass storage would be one direction to look at. Not
for everything, of course... but think of having several large
mega-floating-collections that served a large group of users. We all
started rethinking delivery models when gas prices went insane last
year, and now that prices are back down we still should be thinking
about this. 

Or improving statewide delivery. You know what really gets me? I can
track a book from Amazon almost door-to-door, but most regional and
statewide delivery services we throw stuff in bags and pray for the
best. "We can't afford better." We don't ask for better.

Karen 

 From: Karen Schneider [mailto:kgschneider at gmail.com] 

Sent: Friday, February 20, 2009 8:31 AM
To: James Casey
Cc: Michael Golrick; publib at webjunction.org
Subject: Re: [Publib] ALA and Funding

 Well, what about massive projects (and oh yes, voting for Michael
Golrick for Council is a given for me)? 

What about building an ILL infrastructure?

What about massive book repositories? 

Etc.

Karen

On Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 9:09 AM, James Casey <jcasey at olpl.org> wrote:

I heard on the radio this morning that Illinois may be getting $8.8
billion in stimulus money.  I sure would like to see a mere $10 million
or so go into public library construction grant projects.   

There are so many small public libraries in our state that cannot even
afford to have a single full time staff person (let alone an MLS
librarian) that finding money at the local level for capital
improvements is all but impossible.  Nevertheless, who can continue
library service in a building with a leaky roof, dead HVAC and ripped up
carpets?  The need for capital expenditure on our library buildings is
HUGE.  ---- Having been on the State Library's Construction Grant Review
Sub-Committee since 1999, I've seen hundreds of grant proposals from
libraries that might just as well shut their doors if the state funding
isn't received.   And then, of course entire townships, villages, and
even counties would be without a functioning public library.   

By the way, I am voting for Michael Golrick for re-election to ALA
Council.  He has done a great job for us.

James B. Casey - My own views

Director of Oak Lawn Public Library

ALA Council Member since 1996

________________________________

***************

The much admired Joe Schallan wrote:

The estimable Karen G. Schneider wrote:

> What about building an ILL infrastructure?

and

> Or improving statewide delivery. You know what really gets me? I can 

> track a book from Amazon almost door-to-door, but most regional and 

> statewide delivery services we throw stuff in bags and pray for the 

> best. "We can't afford better." We don't ask for better.

Karen has hit several of my longstanding hot buttons.

As a front-liner, I feel like a (excuse the French) friggin' *moron* as
I sit there and explain that interlibrary loan may take two to eight
weeks, even if WorldCat shows the item in the collection of a library
system one suburb over from us.

How often the response is "oh I'll just get it from Amazon," and that
response is a dagger in my librarian's heart, every time.  I've wanted
to say that I have a lunch hour coming up and I'll just *drive* over to
the next town and get the dang thing for you if you can come back in an
hour or two.

Why haven't we brilliant librarians come up with a national system to
get materials in patrons' hands in a quick and efficient manner?

The answer is . . . and it is a sad one . . . our inability to overcome
the highly

fragmented nature of our service, our myopic focus on local turf.   

Those places

that have in some way overcome the political boundary down the road and
around the corner are to be commended.  There seem to be far too few.

My turf, metropolitan Phoenix, is an excellent case in point.  We have
about four million residents in something like 20 or 25 incorporated
places, the gorilla in the room being the City of Phoenix with 1.5
million.  Most of the 20 or 25 incorporated places maintain their own
library systems, with a few opting for service from the Maricopa County
Public Library, whose charge is to serve unincorporated areas plus any
incorporated area that does not otherwise have library service.  (The
county library district is essentially an overlay on existing municipal
library systems, and wisely does not attempt to duplicate the services
of those systems.)

The county library does provide a minimal courier service among itself
and the municipal systems (going only to the main library of each), but
it cannot provide a book to you from a neighboring jurisdiction on an
overnight basis.  The service is too limited and too slow.  No
cooperative attempt has been made, as far as I know, to expand it and
speed it up.

A patron once stopped at my desk, help up his index finger, and then,
with a wink, wordlessly fanned out six local library cards from his
wallet.

He then asked -- reasonably, I thought -- why we couldn't have just one
library card that worked all over metro Phoenix.

I told him that it was a very good question.

These are the kinds of moments that, for me, put the lie to all our
claims about being devoted to excellent customer service.

Excellent customer service would be getting the item that is on the
shelf in Glendale into a patron's hands in Tempe the next day.  Hell, if
we had the gumption -- and it's a lot more about gumption than money,
though stimulus money could certainly be a great help -- we could get
that book across the country overnight.  Amazon does it all the time.

Excellent customer service would be replacing the half-pound of plastic
in my book-loving patron's wallet with one card.

Oh we do a few things cooperatively.  Some training.  Access to a
library of downloadable ebooks and audiobooks, which as time and
technology move forward, I certainly can't downplay.

But in the nitty-gritties of library service, in making the transactions
easy, the interface to the library transparent, and the access to an
item just ten miles away fast and reliable, we really do bupkes.

I shall soon be able to wipe the bloody spot off the brick wall, put a
gauze pad on the corresponding spot on my forehead, and retire to my
lair.  I will be the type of retiree who is probably going to want quite
a bit from ILL (offbeat interests, you know), and so may have
opportunity to reopen the wound much sooner than later.

While our profession's managers ballyhoo change and being change agents,
nothing fundamental changes.

Joe Schallan

Phoenix

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