Budget Blues
Posted by: Barbara Bibel
After many years of 10 to 15% cuts in our materials budget, we got really bad news: this year the cut is 25% of what’s left! Given the financial woes of the city of Oakland and the State of California, it is not a total surprise, but why do the Powers that Be always hit the library so hard? Our last staff meeting was spent trying to divide the remaining funds fairly. Of course this means thinking hard about the reference collection. We are all looking at our print and electronic resources to see how much they are used, how they are used, and whether any of them are redundant. The business directories are an obvious major expense and many of the print versions no longer exist anyway. The big question is, can we afford any new electronic resources? Is our consortium planning to negotiate a group subscription to any of them? Do we need to cancel anything in order to subscribe? Do we want to do this? We have to consider the needs of all of our patrons and come up with a plan that is acceptable and workable for everyone. I’m sure that we are not alone. Libraries everywhere are dealing with similar issues. The budget woes make us evaluate our collections carefully and find creative ways to maintain them. I am very happy to be on the Dartmouth Committee this year. I just hope that most of the nominated works will be resources that are appropritate for our collection. I am also happy that I review for a number of publications. My collection is richer as a result. How are you handling your budget woes?
