Recession sends droves to public libraries
http://www.connpost.com/localnews/ci_12704623
By MariAn Gail Brown
STAFF WRITER
Updated: 06/28/2009 12:45:55 AM EDT
Hiroshi Asada has a particular spot he heads to inside the Westport Public Library to lay out his laptop and do his research. The Saugatuck River rushes by to his left. A downtown view is straight ahead. He chooses the same mahogany conference table whenever possible. That’s where he delves into cross-cultural communication issues and writes articles intended for Japanese businesses.
The other day, the seat he ordinarily uses because of its proximity to an electrical outlet for his laptop was filled.
On the way out of the adult reading room, where the only sounds are the tap-tap-tapping of folks on their computers and the rustling of newspaper, Asada ran into some reference librarians. “They were talking about how there are more people using the library,” Asada said. “Some days of the week, I can’t find the spot I normally take. If I get there at nine o’clock, things are fine. But an hour later, it can be another story.”
Circulation at Connecticut public libraries is up significantly, a number of library directors say, mostly because of the recession. And more people are applying for library cards, some for the first time, to save money, chucking their Netflix and other subscriptions in favor of borrowing DVDs, CDs and books from libraries.It costs $169 million a year to run Connecticut’s 181 public libraries, with more than 90 percent of that funding coming from city and town budgets. The rest of the revenue comes from state appropriations. UnderGov. M. Jodi Rell’s proposed budget, funding for public libraries would be eliminated. That means no more free Internet access, databases and inter-library loan programs or reimbursements that allow patrons of one library to borrow material from other libraries.
“Zeroing out library budgets at a time when people are rediscovering how necessary libraries are, especially during this recession, and the range of services we provide is counterproductive,” Westport Library Director Maxine Bleiweis says. “Last month our useage was up more than 20 percent compared to the same time last May. That’s huge.”
The gains libraries like Westport are seeing reverses a four-year trend of flat attendance figures and circulation numbers.
“As people find alternative ways of getting reading material, other than downloading to a Kindle, ordering from Amazon or hitting Borders and Barnes & Noble, they are coming back to public libraries,” Bleiweis said. “People are dropping their video club memberships, their newspaper subscriptions and coming back to us. And we see this in one of the highest educated reading communities in the country. People are making decisions about spending, being more careful, more frugal, with whatever they have.”
A Connecticut State Library survey of the state’s public libraries conducted in January shows that for the first six months of this fiscal year, 52 of 57 libraries that responded indicated that they saw substantial increases in circulation and attendance, with some reporting more than a 20 percent gain.
One of the advantages that library users now enjoy — the ability to borrow material from libraries in other Connecticut cities and towns — would essentially disappear. Last year, Connecticut libraries loaned 4.7 million items to out-of-towners, with the state reimbursing them $1.23 million.
According to statistics maintained by the Connecticut Library Consortium, Westport loaned 250,000 items, more material, books, CDs and videos than any other library in Connecticut by far.
“If the budget is cut the way it now appears, the Connecticut public libraries will drop out of these interlibrary loan programs,” said Tom Newman, data research manager for the Connecticut State Library. “Municipalities finance around 90 percent of their public library operating budget. Few of them have any sizeable endowment or fundraising, so most will not be able to absorb the funding loss from the state.”
The Greenwich Public Library gets more money from its taxpayers, about $6.8 million during the last fiscal year, than any other public library. Fundraising by the Greenwich library added another $848,221 to its coffers. By comparison, Bridgeport’s public libraries operated on a $4.1 million budget with another $11,985 derived from fundraising and $6,777 from gifts.
“All of the various library listservs I’ve looked at are commenting on how useage is up,” said Janet Fischer, a library administrator with the Bridgeport Public Library. “These kind of cuts will be horrible. They will devastate the services we have in Connecticut. It will take years to get back the databases. These are not services that can be recovered easily.”
Inside the second-floor computer lab at the Broad Street branch of the library, all of the available computer stations were filled, and there were a couple of patrons waiting to swoop in and claim them as soon as they became vacant. People were working on updating resumes, researching business and checking e-mail.
“Our computer lab is always filled up,” Fischer says. “Everytime we add a new computer, we have somebody using it.”
Back at the Westport Library, Asada, a writer, notes that the recession hasn’t affected either his or his wife’s earnings. Asada’s wife is a financial adviser.
“The spontaneous buying that we used to do, if a suit was on sale at a store, we aren’t doing anymore. We are more inclined now that we were in the past to check out movies from the library. I just took out ‘Twilight’ for my wife and daughter. I do things like that every two weeks or so. We’ve gotten to the point of saying if there’s a movie that we only want to see once or twice, why buy it — unless you’re going to see it again and again. Most movies we don’t do that with.”
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