It seems everywhere you turn library budgets are getting slashed. In some cases the budgetary reality it’s so ugly that the management of public library services is being outsourced to private companies.
But here in Seattle things are a bit different.
The Seattle City Council has adopted a $2 million increase for The Seattle Public Library’s 2008 materials budget.
They already know that libraries matter. In 1998 the citizens of Seattle voted overwhelmingly for the “Libraries for All” bond measure, a $196.4 million infusion to build new, and remodel existing, branches citywide. This is where the money for the Rem Koolhauss designed Central Library came from and where the recent boon in library usage originates.
How busy has the library gotten:
For her piece in the Seattle Times, Looking for that hot new title? At Seattle library wait may be long, Mary Ann Gwinn tried to get a copy of Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and there where 726 people ahead waiting for one of the 119 copies in circulation.
Not exactly serving the community by any stretch.
And if the $2 million increase isn’t amazing enough the City Council also set “a significant new funding guideline for future library materials budget proposals.” The new guideline or “Statement of Legislative Intent” basically requests that “the library present the ideal level of resources needed to accommodate the growing library system and resulting patron demand.”
Tell us what you need and we will try and help!
I forgot the government worked that way.