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May 2, 2010

Budget cuts could throw libraries back decades in time

http://www.northjersey.com

Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Parsippany Life
STAFF WRITER
By Lisa Kintish
"Without delivery we'd be thrown back to the 1950s," said Michele Reutty, director of the Rockaway Township Free Public Library, referring to possible elimination of the interlibrary delivery service because of potential state budget cuts.

Reutty and librarians throughout New Jersey are worried about losing 74 percent of state funds if Governor Chris Christie’s proposed budget is passed on June 30.
At present, if a Rockaway Township resident needs a book that is available in East Hanover, there is no need to drive for miles as the book can be delivered to the local library. Take away interlibrary delivery, the person may be out of luck or as Reutty put it, "information delayed is information denied."

For smaller libraries, such as the Boonton Holmes Public Library and Dover Free Public Library, interlibrary delivery is a no-cost way to expand book catalogs.
Another victim of the proposed budget cuts would be databases, for which the contracts are negotiated at the state level and then distributed at no charge for use by customers at all New Jersey libraries.

Jayne Beline, library director for the Parsippany Library explained, "Students use these electronic resources for their school research and business people use RefUsa to gather information about business contacts and similar businesses. If statewide services are eliminated, this would be the cost to our library: Delivery/postage charges for interlibrary loans: $317,227; to replace the databases that we now receive at no cost from the state: $168,507; Email system $3000 plus staff costs; and Loss of state aid: $25,000."

End of cooperatives
Morris County libraries are part of the Highlands Regional Library Cooperative, HRLC, one of only four such entities in New Jersey. The Cooperatives assist local libraries in offering services while keeping down operating costs, but with the passing of the state budget, they may cease to exist.
Joanne P. Roukens, executive director of HRLC, said, "We link more than 2500 member libraries of all types statewide -- public, academic, school, institutional, law, medical, corporate, not-for-profit and library related agencies – in the New Jersey Library Network. Services provided by the Regional Library Cooperatives are funded to the New Jersey Library Network by the New Jersey Legislature and the New Jersey State Library. We are non-profit 501c 3 organizations and funds come from tax dollars. We’ve been in existence for 25 years. Our budget line is zeroed out in the proposed budget."

Roukens added, "The Regional Library Cooperatives help libraries of all types to share resources, combine purchasing power, realize economies of scale, implement new services, collectively access high quality electronic resources, and increase productivity across the state as we train and support New Jersey’s 21st-century workforce. All of this is accomplished with a state appropriation that has not increased since FY1989. We are the definition of resource sharing."
Along with the demise of the library cooperatives will be the end of such services as library delivery, access to RefUSA, Academic Search Premier, Business Source Premier, all EBSCO databases, Gale Custom Newspapers, and Informe. Also impacted would be interlibrary loan service through JerseyCat, HRLC services for group purchasing, group discounts, and cooperative projects, and HRLC continuing education services.

No more minimum support?
The proposed state budget is not the only concern facing libraries. As it now stands, individual library budgets rise and fall with its municipality’s property values, based on a three-year average. The Equalized Assessed Evaluation is multiplied by .0003333 to get the minimum amount the municipality can provide to support the library. Assemblyman John Di Maio has introduced a bill (A2555) that would eliminate municipal library funding minimums.
Sam Pharo, director of the Boonton Holmes Public Library, said that while he has "full faith" in the town of Boonton to recognize the services the library provides, his concern is that in extreme times of economic pressure the library will be viewed as a "convenient way to close the budget."
Pharo noted that the town may not realize the full impact that would have, causing "damage that will be hard to reverse."

Beline offered, "In Parsippany, we have a mayor and Town Council who are very supportive of the public library. If financial times get tougher and administrations change, the absence of a mandated formula would make it very easy for a mayor and Council to decide to cut the library’s budget, making it difficult to operate."

She continued, "A Parsippany homeowner living in a home valued at $400,000 pays $133.32 per year for public library service. That’s $2.56 a week. If this homeowner or someone in his family borrows one item a month, they are almost doubling their investment. It’s a $10.24 investment versus the almost $20 cost for that item. "

Help in a recession
The budget situation is truly a double-edged sword. The poor economic times that threaten the libraries have also created a great need for these institutions. Patrons rely on libraries for services ranging from job searches to computer training to family entertainment.
Parsippany saw an increase in circulation by 11.7 percent from 2008 to 2009. There were 139 computer classes attended by 824 patrons.

"Some of our citizens do not own a computer and come into the library to complete job applications," said Beline. "One of those citizens was a gentleman applying for a job at Jiffy Lube. Some of these people have never used a PC before and turn to our librarians for help. We also aid those who need to complete their unemployment claims on line."

Beline offered other ways the library helps enrich the lives of Parsippany residents.
"Due to the downturn in the economy, people are looking for free entertainment for themselves and their families," she said. "Our library provides this service. In 2009, we provided 1415 library sponsored programs with an attendance of 29,342. In Parsippany, some of the middle school extracurricular programs are scheduled to be eliminated; and if adequately funded we can provide after school programs for this age group."

The librarians are not being quiet about the situation. There will be a rally in Trenton on May 6 and they have been spreading the word through fliers, bookmarks and their library web sites which offer links on how to become a library champion and how to contact Governor Christie and other representatives: http://capwiz.com/ala/nj/home/. More information can be found at www.savemynjlibrary.org.
E-mail: kintish@northjersey.com

Posted by tumulty at May 2, 2010 11:37 AM

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