Posted on 03/29/2010 9:15:37 AM PDT by freelancer
The link will take you to a statement by Patricia Tumulty, the Executive Director of the New Jersey Library Association. Her remarks summarize how the budget cuts will affect libraries. While I support Christie's efforts to get the state budget under control, I think libraries are about to take a harder hit than other services (keep in mind, unlike teachers, firemenn, policemen and a host of other workers on local and state levels, public librarians are not protected by unions). The proposed budget cut is about $1.00 for each New Jersey resident. I'm not saying no cuts to libraries, but just not quite as much as proposed.
Another related legislative issue is A2555, introduced by Assemblyman John DiMaiois http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/2010/Bills/A3000/2555_I1.HTM This amounts to about 3% of local property taxes. In short, if your mayor and council members are the aliterate sort, they could easily balance the town's budget by closing the library because they do not "deem" any amount necessary.
On a personal note, if my library closed, the people I see on the computers would no longer have internet access, the homeschoolers who use the library regularly would not have all those books, the grumpy old men who come in everyday would have to get their newspapers some other way, bibliophiles (like me) who read more books than they can possible afford to purchase will go bankrupt just to feed their habit.
I posted another vanity on whether conservatives or liberals were more likely to close public libraries. Replies were mixed. Looking at what is going on in other states, actions are also mixed. Some governors who reduce library funding are dimocrats, others are Republicans. Libraries, it seems, are an easy target when it comes to budget cuts. Whether or not you think librarians themselves are a liberal lot, please be aware that librarians, more than any other profession, oppose censorship in any form.
Finally, would somebody please show me how to activate a link within the body of a thread or comment?
Our lardass Governor Rendell hit libraries and state historical sites hard when we refused to give him the tax increases he demanded. We closed the gap with volunteers.
I am asking freepers to ask their reps to CUT the budget to the public libraries!!!
My sister gets paid $125/hr from multiple libraries to teach arts & crafts. The same libraries also teach yoga classes(competition with the gym) and lets you rent DVD (why have netflix/redbox).
Apparently most libraries pay teachers $125/hr in return for each supporting budget increases. Paying someone $10/hr or asking for a volunteer is too much!
CUT THE LIBRARY BUDGET!
Sorry - I’m for cutting the library budgets. Our librarians are rude, fat, ugly and refuse to help the customers, they just yell at people all day.
The schools have librarys, and if you want internet access, buy a cheap netbook go to McDonalds. The homeschoolers can purchase books for their students just like I pay tuition to keep my kids out of the public school. The grumpy old men can get grumpier or buy a newspaper. As for the Librarians, this is a real job? They sort and shelve books.
Nothing is “free” and if the libraries need more funding perhaps they should charge for some of their services...you know...practice a little capitalism....
The person is probably being paid $125 to teach a one-hour course. That’s not unusual.
What’s also not unusual is for a local govt to cut spending on very popular and well-used public services in order to create public outcry against cuts and for additional funding. Instead, they should be focusing on waste, fraud, and reducing the local govt bureaucracy. We’ve got the wrong people in office.
Cut the library budget. Anybody who wants to do research can use the Internet. For those who want to rent movies, go to your local supermarkets. The A&P by me rents them cheap. For those who like to hang out at the library and read the newspaper, spend 50c on the local rag.
Why do we even need public libraries anymore?
I mean, seriously?
You are right. Libraries are becoming obsolete. There are no longer needed.
“The proposed budget cut is about $1.00 for each New Jersey resident.”
According to the director of my county library consortium The average local budgetary contribution to libraries is over $67 per resident.
In other words the proposed cut in state aid is about 1.5% of the library budgets.
I’m a heavy user and supporter of my local library, but at this point I think that they are “crying wolf”.
>You are right. Libraries are becoming obsolete. There are no longer needed.
Thery are still needed. Where would the homeless sleep during the day?
I think libraries should be privately run anyway.
I use my local library heavily, and it’s not privately run (even though I think libraries SHOULD be). If you read heavily and don’t have a $200/mo book budget they are invaluable!
Librarians routinely dispose of politically incorrect books. The 150 year old Mechanics' Institute library in San Francisco has a few 100 year old books still on their shelves, but none survive that offend any of the political fashions over the last 100 years. It's as if the bizarre values of modern SF existed 100 years ago.
N.J. don’t need no stenkin libraries, Kali don’t need no stenkin oil, or revenue,, they have a lot in common.
I don’t go in my library anymore. The “New Books” section is always the same: a few books on gays, a few on evil conservatives and a few on the Holocaust. Look in history and find nothing on the horrors of communism. In religion, its difficult to find a book which isn’t a refutation of orthodox Christian belief. For a while I was making them work and bring book from other libraries but finally gave up on that. If the library in my CT town closed, I would cheer. we had one of the first good libraries in CT too...it was the library of the minister who founded what became Yale University.
Nope.
Libraries are becoming obsolete.
If a local municipality wants to make up the cuts, that would be up to the citizens of that municipality.
And that’s the way it should be.
The closer our tax dollars stay to our own communities, the more control we have over them.
The State of New Jersey should be involved in maintaining state roads, state police, state courts, state prisons, motor vehicle administration, and not much else.
Local municipalities should assume local administration with the consent of the citizens.
Period.
Very true, I tried to get some Nancy Drew books for a kid the other month, and they have been pulled from our libraries due to “racism.”
Say what?
LOL. You’re right. I didn’t think about the homeless. Could it be ‘cause I am not a compassionate conservative?
The problem isn’t the staffing, but the culture of entitlement. I have worked in the past for the head librarian who is a good friend of mine, but even he is having difficulty turning things around. His longterm goal is to make the library self-sustainable.
The community I live in is losing their last used bookstore, so I have to make a pitch to him to see what can be done about purchasing their remaining stock. I personally think that buying and selling books will fill a niche for him, and he’ll have a better chance of pulling the entire library off of their government funds.
However . . .
Christie's right in asking libraries to share the pain. Money is tight and communities have to make serious choices. If cities *really* want to declare their libraries as unnecessary (they are not) they should have the freedom to do so. If you do not have the freedom to make bad decisions, you are not really free.
If libraries end up with shortfalls they need to find ways to cut their internal budgets and/or make up lost revenues. (Library Friends groups can help with both. In the previous town in which I lived the Friends staged an annual play that brought $20,000 after expenses for the library — in a town of $19,000.)
I will also point out that there are librarians that are completely oblivious to the true sources of the moneys used to run their libraries. Some seem to believe that the money magically appears, kind of in the same way that the stork brings babies. It can be very frustrating trying to explain that when personal incomes in communities drop it is unreasonable for local governments to raise taxes to make up shortfalls due to drops in sales taxes and other economically-based sources of taxation.
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