WebJunction

I'm Curious, George…

Some folks from the Gates Foundation recently visited my state to talk about what happens with our public access programs after support from the Foundation ends. We had a great workshop, and every one left feeling all excited about where we go from here.

But I returned to my home library to receive - you guessed it - another round of local funding cuts, and now our library is really broke! We can forget about “technology planning” and “sustainability.” Our furnace is broken, so on cold afternoons the only way we can warm ourselves is by reading D. H. Lawrence. (Thank goodness they're not filtering that!) Our director had to sell her car, and now hauls herself to work in a wheelbarrow…

We've cut costs every way we can think of: cutting up used grocery bags for printer paper, relying on an old steam-powered bar code reader, and even carving new "rubber" stamps out of potatoes. So maybe I'm exaggerating - but times are tough. Short of robbing the local bank, what can we do to improve the sorry state of our finances?

Destitute in Dudley

Dear DiD,

You said it. Times are tough. You ask any of our members here at WebJunction, and 9 out of 10 times they'll say that funding is the "biggest tech hurdle" for their library. It may help to share the grief, and the panic. But we can't stop there. While there are numerous ways to address budget and funding woes, the worst way is to abandon your tech planning and sustainability. Librarians don't always need to think in terms like "cost reduction," "marketing" or "return on investment." But principles from the private sector can provide a struggling organization some guidance in a crunch. Here are a few tips to keep you up in the saddle.

Partners andAllies. Strategic alliances are quickly becoming the way of the world in the private sector, accounting for an estimated 25% of US company value by the year 2005. Libraries can align with non-profit organizations or other government agencies in order to put forth a larger, more unified force to potential funders. With more resources available to you than if you were to go it alone, you will become more attractive as a community investment.

Ride on Enron. The public is sick to death of hearing about the latest corporate accounting scandal, but we can use this to our advantage. Do your technology planning (using a tool like Tech Atlas might help) and then point to the stellar accounting of your library's hardware, software, and staff capacity when making a funding pitch. Your potential funders will be more than impressed with your organization, and with your clear demonstration of needs. And when you get your own clean bill of health from your annual or bi-annual audit, make sure your community newspaper, cable TV, or radio station know about it. Getting the numbers right makes a big impression on people, especially in these times!

Customer's Always Right. Ten, twenty, forty thousand patrons can't be wrong. Do you keep records of how often your public access resources are utilized by your patrons? These, like circ stats, can boost staff morale, and your library's argument for the value you bring to your community.

Return on Investment. Do a little creative exercise to help demonstrate what your library means to the community. Let's take a public library serving 7,500 people. Using statistics from the PLA Statistical Report: Public Library Data Service, 2000, that library would have roughly 40,000 adult circulations and 30,000 children's circulations per year, and a $353,000 budget. (I used the 2000 report because it breaks out children's circulations.) Next, let's consider book prices, as reported in The Bowker Annual: Library and Book Trade Almanac, 2003, 48th Edition. If an average novel costs $28 in hardcover and $6.80 in paperback, and the average juvenile book costs $21, and our hypothetical library circulated 40,000 adult books (half hardcover, half paperback) and 30,000 children's books, you have saved the people of your service area $1,326,000 in book sales. All of a sudden, you have a return on investment, just in book circulation, of 375%! If you come up with valuations on reference transactions (try comparing them to the lowest price research in "Google Answers") and story hour attendance (compare to the child's price at a movie theater, or the price of enough Chuck E. Cheese tokens to keep a four year old busy for the equivalent length of time as your story hour), you will see that the return is even higher. These are numbers that can convince even the flintiest elected official or grantor.

Libraries are different from the private sector, to be sure. But some of their principles can go to work for our libraries. And applying these principles to our libraries is a way of proving to business people and government officials that we are at least as serious about what we do as they are! Try it - you may be surprised!

Economically yours,

George