Public Outcry Saves Saskatchewan Library Funds

Library advocacy | Public libraries | Access |Funding | Activism

Drop Everything and Read rally, Fox Valley, Sask.
Photo credit: Susan Rose

 

 

By Bob Warburton on May 15, 2017

In an abrupt about-face, the provincial government of Saskatchewan, Canada, on April 24 restored every penny of the $4.8 million it had cut just a month earlier from public library funding as part of its 2017–18 budget. It was a reversal that elected officials admit was prompted by mounting public opposition to the cuts, spurred in part by a Facebook group that sprang up almost overnight to energize many grassroots protests.

The announcement by Saskatchewan Education Minister Don Morgan wrapped up a tumultuous five weeks in which a determined and unified library community prevailed over what were considered long odds.

They saw thousands of petition signatures, a claim by Morgan that usage had declined significantly and some parts of Saskatchewan might have too many libraries—rebutted point by point by the nonprofit Saskatchewan Library Association (SLA)—sinking poll numbers for the political party in power, a protest aimed directly at elected officials, and a sudden halt to Saskatchewan’s popular interlibrary loan system. Read more...

THE NECESSITY OF EXTREMISM IN LIBRARY ADVOCACY AND POLITICAL OUTREACH by pcsweeney March 30, 2016

This is a post that I’ve been working in various forms for about 3 years. There’s a lot of background and explanation here and I’ll even cite my sources where I can. Essentially, I’m going to make the claim that advocacy and politics in America has been hijacked by a sadly necessary extremism and that for libraries to continue to exist as we know them we need to get on board with the rhetoric. If we don’t learn to start to talk about libraries in a severely emotionally meaningful way that engages and activates our most impassioned supporters, libraries will be next on chopping block. We can’t allow this to happen because libraries are one of the few truly great institutions to come out of the American Government.

Before I really get into this, I’d like to point out that this is not a partisan issue. I have seen these tactics in use by every political party. I’d also like to point out that I’m a pretty hardcore moderate and I have a strong and healthy distrust of both progressive and conservative parties as well as low faith in both the government and corporate power structures. I’m going to do my best to pull examples from as many different arenas as possible for a fair and balanced discussion of the issue that should make everyone equally angry.

This all begins with my own blog and why I essentially stopped blogging. The truth is that I was frustrated about what kinds of posts got the most hits. A few years ago I realized that the posts that “did the best” were ones that were inherently mean spirited or controversial for their extreme views. For example, I wrote a post about Second Life that was intentionally mean spirited and to this day it is my most read piece. The thing to realize about this post is that I never really said anything important. There was nothing in there that would move anything forward. Libraries were already dropping Second Life and by the time I wrote the piece the virtual landscape was already a ghost town. On the other hand, I wrote a number of other posts that I think were more important but didn’t have anywhere as close to the same level of emotional reactions, emotion, or rhetoric and they were hardly read at all.  Read more...

Kentucky Contingencies | EveryLibrary

Kentucky Contingencies

Post on January 15, 2015 by John Chrastka tagged: campbell county library, kentucky, tea party

When “any tax is a bad tax”, the library is an instrument of tyranny.

The Tea Party of Northern Kentucky case against two libraries is set to be ruled on by the state Appeals court any day now.
This appeal follows a loss by the libraries in the lower state court. 
The loss would roll back funding for 99 out of 104 libraries in Kentucky
to at least 1979 levels.  To date, the Supreme Court has refused to rule on the case, remanding it to the Appeals court.  Likewise, the legislature in Kentucky failed to pass a bill at the end of last session to ‘fix’ the points of law at the root of the case.  The President of the Senate wanted to let the Courts sort it out.  The points of law are pretty thoroughly discussed
in other places. We don’t have a way to handicap the Appeals court
deliberations, but we – and the rest of the national library advocacy
ecosystem – do need to anticipate their ruling.



EveryLibrary has been tracking this case since 2013 for two reasons:  If
the Tea Party ultimately prevails, the 99 libraries affected by the
ruling may have to go out for Petition or Ballot to reset their tax
rates to current levels; and, that this is a situation where a small
group of anti-tax ideologues sued libraries, and that technique for
‘shrinking government’ has been proven viable. If the libraries prevail
in their appeal, the funding picture for libraries in the Commonwealth
of Kentucky is more stable, but the underlying anti-tax climate
there – and across the country – has only been handed temporary setback.
When the URL one of the local plaintiff groups is “TaxlessSociety.com”,
they will be back.  They are on a mission.  Read more....

New York City Public Library Branches Need $1.1 Billion in Repairs: Report - WSJ

A patron upstairs at Brooklyn Public Library's 111-year-old Pacific branch in Boerum Hill; 'The current condition of New York City's libraries greatly impedes our ability to fully support the incredible talent, creativity and potential of New Yorkers,' said library President Linda Johnson

. John Taggart for The Wall Street Journal

New York's public library branches need $1.1 billion to fix leaky roofs, broken air-conditioning systems and a host of other problems, according to a report released Monday by the Center for an Urban Future, a New York-based think tank.

The report argues that the city has a "broken funding system" in which libraries rely too much on discretionary funds from City Council members. It calls on Mayor Bill de Blasio to create a citywide capital plan for libraries and to double capital spending on libraries over the next 10 years.

"Mayor de Blasio recognizes the important role that libraries play in providing critical services to New Yorkers, which is why this administration is taking a new approach to invest in and partner with and support libraries," said a spokeswoman for the mayor. Read more...

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