Thanks to Stephanie of San Marcos for this heartening editorial that the chair of the Dallas PL Friends wrote. Now, if each of you could find someone to write an equally inspiring piece for your own library and get it printed in your local newspaper, perhaps a few important funders would take notice. Laurie
Laurie Mahaffey, Deputy Director Central Texas Library System, Inc. 1005 West 41st Street Austin, Texas 78756 www.ctls.net [email protected] 512-583-0704 x18 800-262-4431 x18 -----Original Message----- From: Langenkamp, Stephanie [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, September 01, 2009 8:11 AM Subject: This is an unusually nice editorial in support of the Dallas PL -----Original Message----- Sent: Monday, August 31, 2009 9:03 PM To: Langenkamp, Stephanie Subject: Dallas: in defense of the city's library system David Kusin: In defense of our city's 'information brain' Dallas Morning News 04:29 PM CDT on Monday, August 31, 2009 It usually takes centuries to build great institutions. Yet citizens of Dallas have been quietly and steadily fostering the development of the Dallas Public Library into one of the finest free public library systems in the country. Equally important, over the past 108 years, the library has become perhaps our most beloved civic institution and one of the truly indispensable necessities of public service. Any day at any time in any open branch, citizens are searching for practical, often vital, information on jobs, health, business, current affairs and general knowledge on thousands of topics. Where does the young family go on its weekly outing to fill its tote bags with CDs and storybooks to enliven bath and bedtime? To one of the 27 neighborhood branch libraries. This remarkable tax-supported institution did not achieve this level of service without infrastructure deliberately established to provide all citizens with equal access to its global resources: no one lives more than about 10 minutes from a branch library, and all are located on public transportation lines. The basic business of the free public library could not appear simpler: the efficient gathering together of the comprehensive materials - books, periodicals, journals and magazines; tapes, CDs and DVDs of stories, movies and music; databases and online tutorials, to name a few - that preserve and present our collective knowledge and culture. The annual budget for acquisition of these materials has been running just under $4 million for the Dallas system. This is at the very low end of a per capita scale for obtaining what equivalent public libraries must spend to meet their fundamental obligations, according to the American Library Association. Despite this minimal materials budget, our librarians have done a remarkably effective job of institution-building over the past several decades. During 2007, the Dallas Public Library circulated more than 4 million items for the 840,000 holders of its free library cards, representing 68 percent of Dallas' population. The library's stature is not the product of local hyperbole. Out of the more than 9,000 public libraries in the U.S., the Library of Congress has located one of its nine Centers for the Book in our downtown Erik Jonsson Central Library, the only library in Texas to be selected. This national recognition provides extra resources for the region and is matched only by the acclaim and devotion that local library users offer every day. To have achieved such standing - in record time, given the long institutional viewpoint - many different tasks have been accomplished simultaneously and exceedingly well. Not least among them is obtaining and managing the continuing inflow of essential materials. These provide what amounts to a brain for the entire library system. Unfortunately, the current draft of the Dallas city budget would effectively lobotomize the institution by cutting its already lean materials budget by 66 percent. More alarming still is the poor budget prognosis for the following budget year, during which these cuts would be sustained. Such a reduction will induce what amounts to institutional coma. Even though some of the initially proposed cuts to library hours have been restored, that improvement will provide cold comfort to patrons when valuable materials - online job search databases, for instance - are no longer available. While such budgetary tinkering may provide "feel good" politics, it fails to preserve the core function of our free public library. The fate of our greatly beloved library now lies in the hands of the Dallas City Council. Fortunately, it seems that some council members are beginning to understand what sustaining this treasure is worth versus the long-term cost of letting it wither. Will all their colleagues on the council join them? We'll know soon, won't we? David Kusin is an economist and board chairman of the Friends of the Dallas Public Library. His e-mail address is [email protected].
