1. I am the director of a small public library. We could not afford the technology we offer our patrons if it had not been for LSTA grants. We rely on these grants to help out our budget. Our budget has been cut and we are trying to keep up with expensive ever-changing technology. Thanks to LSTA grants in the past 15 years, our library has been able to keep up with technology and offer our patrons the best even though we are a small library. We do not have the tax base larger libraries rely on- most of our funding comes from property taxes and with the economy failing we have lost a lot of our funding due to foreclosures etc. Please, please don’t take away LSTA grant funds.

    — 

    Karen Kahl, in our blog’s comment section, emphasizing why we want you to call your congressional representative today and ask them to support library funding. (via libraryadvocates)

    This is an easy action step. Do it. I plan to first thing tomorrow morning.

    (via thelifeguardlibrarian)

  2. Libraries, as we know, do not exist for free. They cost their communities—whether composed of taxpayers, tuition-payers, donors, or a combination—a substantial amount of money. It’s well-intentioned to emphasize that libraries provide materials and services without exacting immediate payment from users for each transaction. But today it is at best a mistake and at worst self-destructive to underrepresent the considerable ongoing investment that the members of a community make to have library collections, technology, personnel, and facilities available to them. There Are No Free Libraries | American Libraries Magazine

    Libraries, as we know, do not exist for free. They cost their communities—whether composed of taxpayers, tuition-payers, donors, or a combination—a substantial amount of money. It’s well-intentioned to emphasize that libraries provide materials and services without exacting immediate payment from users for each transaction. But today it is at best a mistake and at worst self-destructive to underrepresent the considerable ongoing investment that the members of a community make to have library collections, technology, personnel, and facilities available to them.

    There Are No Free Libraries | American Libraries Magazine

  3. Library Journal: Materials Mix: Investigating Trends in Materials Budgets and Circulation →

    booksyarnink:

    “The materials breakdowns reported by this year’s respondents will come as no surprise to anyone who has set foot in a public library recently. Though materials budgets remained flat, averaging $765,000 and veering from $24,000 overall for libraries serving populations under 10,000 to nearly $4.5 million overall for libraries serving populations of 500,000 or more, total book budgets—averaging $449,800—have fallen. 

    Book budgets fell on average in every region but the South, and in some libraries—those serving populations of 100,000 to 499,999—the cuts were big, averaging more than four percent.”

    The statistics in here are not very surprising: budgets flat or falling, while circulation is going up. Print is dropping as more money is needing to be allocated to media and ebooks, along with drops in reference databases.

    Interesting looks at the role of marketing and social media in libraries, and how we are becoming — or really, have always been — a key promoter for books, in whatever form they are in.