Re: [Mpls] Library Choices

[WizardMarks]

WizardMarks wrote:

Thanks, Gus, for bringing me up short on my numbers. Over a period of 
years, Gus has been ever so slowly trying to get me to understand 
numbers, and bless him, he never gives up. We will, however, have 
coffee and discuss outreach in the near future.

Bob GUSTAFSON wrote:

I was requested to forward to the list the recommendation made by 
CLIC (the Capital Long-Range Improvement Committee) concerning the 
Library and its capital program. I have enclosed the "Comments" 
section as the actual budget numbers being recommended are lengthy 
and not totally .... CLIC works with the Planning Department to 
review all requests for capital needs for the City ranging from the 
Libraries to Fire and Police Stations to Streets, Sewers, Street 
Lights and Bridges.... Every year there are more projects presented 
then there are dollars to fund.

LIBRARY COMMENTS

Library staff acknowledged after the referendum that "it would have 
been a good idea" to incorporate "an amount for operating expenses 
into the 2000 referendum." They seemed to feel that the estimated $4 
million per year operating shortfall projected upon the projects 
completion could be ignored for the moment because it would not fully 
impact the budget until the 2010 plan was complete. Now the library 
is faced with the need to cut a similar amount of some $4 million 
from their budget due to reductions in LGA. 

Considering the tight financial situation the Task Force remains 
confused as to the Libraries attempts to stretch their services to 
extend beyond those normally assumed by a library. Examples include 
the emphasis placed on community meeting rooms....Homework Helper and 
services for immigrants are important services to the community and 
the library places great emphasis on them.

The Task Force wonders if the library is the correct forum for 
providing them. For example there are many more schools than 
libraries available for providing these services. One can argue that 
they don't have the funding to do so. Neither does the Library. The 
Task Force feels the infrastructure is already in place to meet these 
needs. 

WM: This confuses two of the possible meanings of 'infrastructure.' The 
library was asked, through the NRP structure/process, to find ways to 
reweave themselves into the community that better served the community, 
the implication being that MPL was allowing it's infrastructure to 
crumble. It was not only building infrastructure that was crumbling, but 
staff attitudes. The communities around specific libraries had solutions 
they wanted tailored to the 1.5 mi. radius which describes each 
Community Library's service area. Their arguments were various, but 
computer literacy was one, Spanish was one, homework helpers was everyone.

Providing operating funds remains a difficult problem, but building 
new facilities when you still will not have operating funds to 
operate them when complete, is the ultimate in fiscal 
irresponsibility. Rather than excuses for why cooperation cannot 
work, the Park Board, School Board and Libraries should learn what we 
try to teach our children, how to share and work together.

WM: This is precisely why I was asked to become a VISTA Volunteer by 
the MPL Hosmer Community Library. The questions MPL and Hosmer patrons 
asked that Hosmer explore were how to do effective outreach to the 
community, is there a formula for success, how do we ask the community 
what their primary needs are, and what will it cost. Though Hosmer is 
the pilot project, early on the project informed MPL, and continue to 
discuss, that this pilot project applies to a group of libraries 
chosen by location and the demographics of patrons: Hosmer, Franklin, 
and East Lake on the southside; Sumner and North Regional on the 
northside. As VISTA America Reads literacy program paid the stipend 
for a VISTA, this outreach had to be tied to VISTA's goal--literacy, 
targeted services to literacy where the need is greatest. For an 
outlay of about $30,000 of federal tax money which pays the VISTA 
stipend for three years, the library netted $540,000 invested locally 
in Hosmer Library plus a second investment from VISTA of summer VISTAs 
for programming outreach. Your tax dollars at work.

They have background information with what libraries are now doing 
for a volume of business, they have information from Hosmer and 
Linden Hills on how library usage changes when the buildings are 
remodeled and programs are expanded, they know what they have for a 
budget. They need to develop a capital plan accordingly. To even 
propose remodeling all the community libraries, to then cut their 
hours and strip their programs and services are beyond incompetent. 
It is foolish.

WM: This brings up the issue of the five libraries (Franklin, Hosmer, 
Sumner, East Lake and North Regional described by how the library was 
thinking about them.

Lastly, in considering their capital plan, the Task Force strongly 
supports the library's discussion of ways to provide services that 
use existing assets of others. (This refers to working with schools 
for example, or possibly coffee shops that might want to be pickup 
and drop off spots for requested books. This concept was referred to 
as "Library Express" in some of the Library's proposals) There is 
much talk by the library of providing new millennium library 
services. Rebuilding existing infrastructure because it is there and 
served us well in the last millennium does not seem to be the most 
progressive way to achieve this.

WM: Hosmer is in the process of exploring the school/library 
collaboration with the school closest to the library, Green Central. 
This work is being carried out by the Children's Librarian at Hosmer 
with assistance from Weed & Seed, another federal program. It's still 
in its early stages.

The Library is considering three plans to address their budgetary 
shortfalls. The Task Force supports reducing the number of community 
libraries to a level that can be properly funded. We support 
cooperation with other entities to provide some of the current 
library services such as homework helpers and special services for 
immigrants. We also support other alternatives such as looking into 
new ways, other than just community libraries, to expand the outreach 
of the core library function of providing books and research to the 
people of Minneapolis. Plan C, as proposed by the Library, most 
closely meets these goals. If additional closures were needed to 
provide the maximum services throughout the remaining library system 
the Task Force would be supportive of that decision.

WM: People's fear is that in cutting the budget, core services will be 
farmed out and so will core

libraries. MPL has already shrunken to fewer libraries (the school 
libraries were in the schools and run by the library as I understand 
it). The remaining core neighborhood libraries have had to pick up 
that task. The confusion may stem from the fact that both schools and 
libraries are funded by the same committee of the state legislature. 

WizardMarks, Central



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(Mpls-specific, of course.)
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