ICYMI: New Canaan, Nearby Librarians Say State Funding Cuts Would Wind up Costing More

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in the past week. We’re republishing it here in case you missed it:

Gov. Dannel Malloy has proposed zeroing out the budgets both for a state-funded program that lets library cardholders borrow from libraries in neighboring towns, as well as an agency that runs a joint-buying program for libraries.

Local librarians are up in arms (well, as much as librarians get) over the proposals.

“The idea that this is somehow saving the taxpayer money is wrong, because these costs will be pushed to the taxpayer at the local level,” New Canaan Library Director Lisa Oldham said about the joint-buying program.

Alan Gray, director of Darien Library, said taking away the Connecticard program, which allows library cardholders to borrow books from out-of-town libraries, “really is going to hurt a lot of peope in this state.”

“To take something that’s so effective [the joint-buying program] and say ‘We’re going to lop off that efficiency,’ doesn’t make any economic sense,” said Maxine Bleiweis, executive director of Westport Library.

The governor’s proposed budget would zero out the $950,000 that the state spent on Connecticard this year (Malloy was asked to fund it at $1.25 million next fiscal year). The other program is the Connecticut Library Consortium, which would lose all of its $332,500 state financing in the next fiscal year, which begins July 1. That represents 63 percent of its operating funds, the nonprofit agency says.

The cuts are part of a long list of spending reductions in the governor’s proposed budget meant to reduce the state’s projected $1.3 billion deficit for the 2015-2016 fiscal year. (The year after that, another $1.3 billion deficit is projected — in both cases, the reason is said to be smaller-than-expected revenues and less federal aid.)

Connecticut Library Consortium

The Connecticut Library Consortium says it provides important efficiencies and help to all libraries, and local library directors agree. Last year, the consortium saved libraries across the state $7.1 million “on critical books, media, databases, materials, supplies, training,” in part by negotiating discounts on purchases for large amounts of goods and services, the agency’s director, Jennifer Keohane, said in a written statement to state legislators.

“We do things collectively when it makes sense, economically — and this makes sense,” Oldham said.

It isn’t just that the consortium saves money on buying books, equipment and electronic databases — most of the librarians pointed out that it also provides training that keeps library employees up to date on new technologies and programs.

Gray said the consortium even has a kind of library for libraries — materials a library may borrow on a seasonal basis that it can then lend out to its own borrowers.

Connecticard

The amount of out-of-town borrowing through Connecticard is significant, Gray said. From March 1, 2014 to Feb. 28, 2015, he said, a total of 4,170,421 items were borrowed at local libraries across the state by out-of-town residents.

Oldham said the Connecticard allows for enormous efficiencies in book buying by town libraries. No local library can afford to have all the books and other materials that borrowers will want, she said, but every borrower benefits from having those books available somewhere.

The Connecticard program is valuable for Norwalk especially, said Norwalk Library Director Christine Bradley, because the library has such limited parking that being able to use a library in a neighboring town is especially useful.

If funding for that program is eliminated, Bradley said, “It could be that some other libraries will say, ‘No, we’re just going to serve our own people and not serve out-of-towners.” On either side of Norwalk, Westport and Darien are two of the biggest lenders in the state to out-of-town borrowers, library directors in those towns said.

Gray pointed out that while Darien has a large collection of books and other material that residents of other communities often borrow, it isn’t just other communities that would be hurt if the Connecticard program was defunded.

Darien residents also borrow from other libraries, Gray said. Greenwich Library has a fine music collection, and Darien residents (perhaps those who work in Greenwich) borrow far more from that library than Greenwich residents ever borrow in Darien, he said.

“I don’t want to be at the door any time someone says, ‘People from outside this community can’t use this library,’” Bleiweis said.