2009 Liberty Center Public Library Budget

January 2009

Dear Residents of the Liberty Center Area:

Our library is important to the people of Liberty Center. How do we know? You continually tell us with positive comments, donations of loose change, gifts to the library from our Wish Tree, memorial gifts in remembrance of a friend or family member, support of our fundraising activities, and more importantly, your friendly faces as you come in to the library to pick up items or drop them off. Reductions are being made to our budget this year. Right now, we just don't have enough money to go all the way around. We want you to know how we are prioritizing our expenses.

Our greatest asset is our building and the staff inside that works for you. Our number one goal is to keep the doors open. Our hours will remain the same. What good is a library if you can't get inside?

Even during this economic downturn we will continue to move forward. You can count on us to continue our efforts to enlarge the library. The reasons for needing more space as identified by the board, still exist:

• Less than half of Liberty Center's high school graduates go on to higher education. We are all aware from Washington down to the everyday citizen, that education is a priority. As a library we hope to provide our teens with information to help them picture the endless opportunities that may be possible for them in the future.
• Our 18-29 year-olds need to have access to information and technology in order to continue their higher education, search for jobs, and develop and maintain their social network.
• Our baby boomers are retiring early but want to continue to make a meaningful contribution to the community by staying active and involved. The library can provide a location and an opportunity for them to do that.

  NONE of our educational programs will be cut.

What are we doing to seek additional funds?

• We are in the process of preparing a grant to submit to the Campbell Soup Foundation asking for financial help in finishing the addition.
• The library has taken the first steps to receive a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for new computers. This is a two year matching grant the Friends of the Library are assisting with.
• The library will continue to apply for a reimbursement of 60% of our local and long distance telephone charges by applying for E-Rate funds each year.
• The Friends of the Library have been given a gift of $500 from Time Warner Cable to underwrite our Summer Reading Program.

We are sure our current economic downturn will be temporary. Therefore, the board is confident that reductions made now will not have a long lasting impact on the level of service we offer to our community.

Outlined below is the short term plan we have developed for making our money stretch farther.

• We have eliminated one of our telephone lines. You may occasionally get a busy signal when you call. One phone line will remain dedicated to our fax machine.
• We have asked our staff to give up going to continuing education workshops. This will eliminate the workshop fees and mileage associated with them.
• We will be spending very little on new library material this year. We hope the generosity of our community will help us during this temporary time.
• We will not pay for advertising.
• We have turned off some of the lights in the library. We will also turn off all our computers at the end of the day, not just the monitors.
• We try to keep the library attractive and in good repair. For a number of years we have paid for a service to replace our walk off mats every two weeks with clean ones. We will try purchasing our own floor mats and cleaning them ourselves when necessary.

How can you help?

• Give us your suggestions! You may have a great idea that we haven't thought of.
• You can help us save on postage by returning your library material on time. If we do need to send you an overdue notice, we can make it an electronic one. Please give us your e-mail address and save the library 42 cents!
• You could donate $15 to purchase a best seller, or $20 to purchase a one year magazine subscription or DVD. Do you buy new books for yourself? If you have books that are 1-2 years old donate them to the library. We will put them on our shelves and share them with everyone. A bookplate with your name will be added to the book.
• Take advantage of our Interlibrary Loan service. We belong to a library consortium of 72 members that lend items to each other. Your Liberty Center Public Library card is like have 72 library cards!

It has long been the goal of the board of trustees to not ask for a tax levy or add any additional fees for library services to the ones we already have (overdue fines, copy fees, printing fees) Your donations are cherished. Some of you may donate your time, others may be able to donate monetarily. We want to continue providing great library service to everyone at minimal cost. Let's make sure no one is excluded from using the library because they can't afford it.

Thank you in advance for your kind attention.

Mary Beth Slee, Director