2010 State Aid to Libraries

Posted by Michael Pate

On Wednesday, March 10, 2010, the House and Senate Transportation and Economic Development Committees both adopted preliminary positions completely eliminating State Aid to Public Libraries.The Florida Department of State and Florida Library Association had recommended continuation of this year's $21.2 million.

On a local level, State Aid is the sole source of funding for the Heartland Library Cooperative. The Cooperative uses this $450,000 in funding to:

• Provide Internet Access for our library patrons including job seeking and filing for state benefits
  

• Operate our Polaris Circulation System that allows us to circulate books and other materials

• Place our Catalog on the Web and the ability to access your account remotely

• Transfer materials between Libraries using our Daily Courier

• Participate in Inter-Library Loan to get books from libraries both state and nationwide

• Purchase eBooks and downloadable Audiobooks

• Offer our Pink Cart program of extra copies of current bestsellers

All of these services would either be eliminated, reduced and require additional funding at the local level. Making that even more challenging would be the fact that State Aid also currently funds $536,000 to our local counties. That will also result in the likely elimination of even more services, due to staff reductions and reducing the number of hours and days some libraries will be open.

Please take the opportunity to express your feelings to your elected officials, especially your State Senator and State Representative as soon as possible as work on these bills will be completed very soon.

March 11, 2010