Spare public libraries from the trigger

The California Library Association (CLA) is urging its members and library supporters to ask that libraries be spared from further state budget cuts.

As explained by the CLA, the Governor’s Budget in January proposed to eliminate $30.4 million in funding for three California library programs: the California Library Services Act, the Public Library Foundation and the state literacy program.  Thanks to heavy lobbying and strong grassroots support from the library community, the CLA was able to retain $15.2 million in funds for state library programs.

But Assembly Bill 121, the “Budget Trigger” bill, specified that if $4 billion in projected state revenues failed to materialize, there would be budget cuts at the beginning of the year that would eliminate the last of library funds.

The CLA reported in mid-November that the Legislative Analyst’s Office projected state revenues to be approximately $3 billion short. As a result, the CLA needs supporters to contact the governor and legislative leaders and ask, “Spare public libraries from the Trigger.”

Among the programs that are at risk is the cooperative loaning of materials from one library system to another.

I depend on my public library for various informational needs. This week I placed holds for books on a reading list for a class that I hope to take in the spring.

I am not the only one making use of California libraries. On “Library Snapshot Day” in October 2010, according to the CLA, 770,831 items were checked out or renewed.

As a volunteer each week for the Lake County Library, I observe first-hand the vital needs that our libraries meet. While I shelve returned items at the Middletown library, our director, Gehlen Palmer, is pulling hold-requests placed by library users in Lake, Mendocino and Sonoma counties.

Throughout our three counties, items are being pulled against similar lists two or three times each day. The Sonoma County Library, which hosts our libraries’ shared catalog, calculated that library cardholders placed more than 800,000 holds during fiscal year 2009.

Library materials continuously travel within our three-county network to connect people with the information they need.

Cooperative loaning between our system and Bay Area libraries gives me access to many more resources than any one system could provide. The proposed budget cuts would devastate this program and I would lose these vital resources that help to inform my life.

Many more Californians depend on libraries’ adult literacy resources. CLA statistics for “Library Snapshot Day” state that 26,962 people received literacy tutoring, homework help and information literacy at a library. Adult literacy learners will have nowhere else to turn if funding for these services is lost.

The loss of state funding would also jeopardize $15 million in federal funds for the Braille and Talking Book library.

All of the officials to whom the CLA asks library supporters to speak can be reached via web-based forms: Governor Jerry Brown, www.gov.ca.gov/m_contact.php; Darrell Steinberg, Senate president pro tempore, http://sd06.senate.ca.gov/contact; Bob Dutton, Senate minority leader, http://cssrc.us/web/31/contact_me.aspx; John A. Perez, speaker of the California State Assembly, http://asmdc.org/speaker/; and Connie Conway, Assembly Republican leader, http://arc.asm.ca.gov/member/34/?p=email.

For those readers who prefer to communicate with these officials through the U.S. mail, the CLA has compiled addresses. For more information visit www.cla-net.org/.

Published Nov. 29, 2011 in the Lake County Record-Bee