December 13, 2004 Mayor Rich Hill and Trustees Dear Mayor Hill and Trustees, Rest assured that this is not a request for funding. It is a report. The Lake Villa District Library serves that portion of Round Lake Beach which lies in Lake Villa Township. The library compiles a brief report to its residents, but it occurred to me that the mayors and trustees of the communities located within, or partly within, district boundaries might want additional detail. Hence this letter. The Lake Villa District Library has, as of mid November 2004, approximately 3,700 resident library card holders living in Round Lake Beach. Given that our total number of card holders is approximately 24,500, this means that 15% of our total activity may be attributed to Round Lake Beach residents. Here are some pertinent statistics from the annual report we sent to the State Library last July: (If you subtract the non-local use counts of 27,064 and 90,782 from 795,087 you get 677,241. Given an average retail cost of $25 per item [which may well be low], this translates into an approximate "total value received from borrowing" of $16,931,000. Put another way, this is about $1650 per average family borrowing from the library.) The library staff answered 32,873 "reference questions" (10,156 of these were from children). (The value of reference questions is notoriously hard to quantify. Business libraries can point to "lost opportunity costs," but public libraries really have no way of placing a value on the information their staff provides. A simple school related question might be worth $5; an answer that helps a person discover a long-lost ancestor might be worth $50; an answer that helps a person start a business might be worth tens of thousands of dollars.) Please note that the library also provides 16 computers for public use - and now provides WiFi (wireless) Internet access as well. The 16 computers are in nearly constant use. If one calculates as 75% use for all of the time the library is open in a week, this comes to 828 hours per week. If one uses the rate charged by a national company for walk-in computer use, $10 per hour, this is a "value received by the taxpayer" of $8280 per week (and of approximately $400,000 per year). The Library District's total operating expenditure was $2,703,581. That - given the values received outlined above - is a bargain. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to visit or call. Sincerely, Bob Watson
RLB Village Hall
1937 N. Municipal Way
Round Lake Beach, Illinois 60073
Director
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| Dear Mayor: A Demonstrating Impact Letter |
Library Director Bob Watson's letter to his mayor and trustees makes the case for his library in practical terms.
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