What Do We Do With Your Tax Dollars?

The following is an article written by Marylaine Block, who writes a weekly electronic magazine for librarians.  Note her suggestions for telling funding groups "What We Do With Your Tax Dollars."  It is an important part of the our story, and we need to be telling it, especially at budget time.

A Predictable Funding Disaster

by Marylaine Block.

Since the economic downturn, many state libraries, public libraries, and even university libraries have had their budgets slashed dramatically. The governor of Colorado used his line item veto to zero out statewide interlibrary loan. In Washington the governor zeroed out the state library budget, though it was restored in a more limited form by the legislature; in Minnesota, the state library was eliminated.

Now, some cuts are inevitable for any public agency when state revenue goes down and the budget has to be balanced, and libraries are less critical than some other government services, but it's rare for any agency to actually be eliminated.

I was horrified, bit I can't say that I'm surprised. The fact that it's happening to libraries is the clearest sign yet that the work librarians do is invisible to the people who make funding decisions. I believe we have failed to demonstrate the value we are returning for public funds.

What are we doing wrong? Well, for starters, we don't even have a decent motto, one that has a ring to it and tells people what we do that matters. Here's one possibility: THE LIBRARY: CREATING READERS SINCE (fill in date of founding). Citizens care about kids and education, but do they remember what libraries contribute to children's delight in learning? We need to remind them. Loudly.

We've been trying to get out from under the public perception of libraries as all books and cobwebs by selling ourselves as information providers. Sorry, but that's like a farmer saying he grows better soybeans than anyone else. Since the internet came along, people think information is free, which makes it an unbrandable commodity. What is brandable is the value we add to the commodity.

It seems to me that a better motto would be something like MORE THAN MERE INFORMATION. Or, ADDING VALUE TO INFORMATION SINCE ________. Or we could stress some of our other important public functions, such as providing public meeting rooms, concerts, poetry readings, etc. How about THE COMMUNITY PLACE, a brand that gains value from people's dawning recognition that we have been bowling alone too long, that there is something missing in our public life.

I think we've missed a bet by failing to convince city and business leaders that, as a specific destination that brings suburban mall shoppers downtown, libraries and librarians are central to efforts to revitalize and rebuild the heart of the city.

We have sabotaged ourselves by failing to tell people that the databases we provide for them by way of the internet may be free to them, but in fact are astoundingly expensive resources that only a library can afford to buy.  Remember, most people make no distinction between ON THE NET and BY WAY OF THE NET. If we don't emphasize that our databases are free only because we have paid the subscription fee, we may fall victim to the public perception that people don't need the library because, after all, all those wonderful databases are free on the net.

In fact, I don't think we've done a good job explaining to citizens -- or to our funders -- how we spend their money and how that advances their goals. The Minnesota State Library was part of the state's education department, but apparently the state librarian didn't convince its leaders that libraries contributed to the educational mission.

I think it's past time for us to explain the value we're giving for money, not in the mind-numbing prose of annual reports nobody's ever going to read, but in simple, understandable bullet points. It's also time for us to explain what librarians do -- too many people, including writers for the New York Times, still think all we do is stamp date due slips as we check books out to people. What we need to provide, I think -- on our web sites, on bookmarks, in newsletters, in reports to the people who make funding decisions -- is something like this:

What Do We Do With Your Tax Dollars

X dollars to license X number of databases that provide online access from home or office to articles in thousands of magazines, newspapers, and reference books.

X dollars to X number of public workstations where people can access the internet, do word processing, and e-mail

X dollars to purchase books, books on tape, videos, CDs, (and whatever other formats you're buying)

X dollars to maintain the library web site, where people can search our catalog and databases as well as our recommended web sites.

X dollars for scheduling and maintaining public meeting rooms

X number of dollars to pay the friendly support staff who smile and chat while they check out your materials to you.

X dollars for professional librarians who this year have answered X number of questions, by phone, e-mail, chat, and in person

selected and cataloged the best books, CDs, videos and databases which met community needs and interests

taught X number of people how to use the internet, e-mail, and other computer applications

read X number of books out loud to X number of kids during story hour, produced X number of puppet shows, arranged X number of parties, and sponsored the summer reading program where X number of children read X number of books

selected X number of outstanding web resources that answer the kinds of questions you ask us frequently, and
linked them to our web pages; selected excellent and child-safe web sites for the children's page

cataloged, preserved and provided digital displays of the history of the community and local government

provided homework help to X number of students

taught x number of classes in schools, nursing homes and daycare centers on how to find information on investments,
homework help, health, genealogy, and other topics

helped X number of people find information on their ancestors and local history

installed X number of software packages, troubleshot X number of computer and printer crashes, and kept X number of workstations open and accessible to our users

taken X number of classes and workshops to learn new technologies and search tools

written and distributed X number of reading lists and instructions for using databases, CD-ROMs, e-books, the internet, and other technologies

Now, doesn't that impress even you, who already know what librarians do every day? And even at that, I'm sure I'm leaving something out.

Obviously, that's a public library list. State, corporate and academic libraries would have a slightly different list of accomplishments to show the people they answer to exactly what the money is buying them and how it contributes to the organization's larger mission.

I suspect we've gotten complacent, assuming that of course any town/state/corporation/university has to have a library. We've assumed that doing a good job was enough to win public support. We've believed so completely that libraries are the heart of our communities that we haven't recognized how many people don't share that belief, and don't much want to spend good money supporting ANY public institution.

Instead of assuming automatic public support, I think we need to earn it. Not just by quietly doing a good job, but by showing how our work improves the lives of our communities and our users.

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Cool Quote

"In hard times, libraries are more important than ever. Human beings need what books give them better than any other medium. Since those ancient nights around prehistoric campfires, we have needed myth. And heroes. And moral tales. And information about the world beyond the nearest mountains or oceans.

"Today, with books and movies more expensive than ever, and television entertainment in free fall to the lowest levels of stupidity, freely circulating books are an absolute necessity. They are quite simply another kind of food. We imagine, and then we live."

Pete Hamill. "Libraries Face Sad Chapter" New York Daily News,
February 25, 2002

Ex Libris: an E-Zine for Librarians and Other Information Junkies.
http://marylaine.com/exlibris/
Copyright, Marylaine Block, 1999-2002.