Pennsylvania: Libraries Must Get Creative in Fundraising Efforts to Keep Programs
From The Patriot-News (Harrisburg, PA):
State funding to libraries [in Pennsylvania] was cut 20 percent in 2010.
“We never really recovered from that,” Dauphin County Library System spokeswoman Karen Cullings said.
These days, library funding is a patchwork quilt of endowments, grants, fundraising, state and county funds and users fees.
Fundraising occurs at all midstate libraries, said Bonnie Goble, director of the Cleve J. Fredricksen Library in Camp Hill. Goble’s library puts on a 5K race and turns the library into a miniature golf course to raise funds.
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“[Technology] makes it very challenging,” said Jonelle Darr, executive director of the Cumberland County Library System, which allocated $20,000 for electronic books this year and then spent only $5,000 or $6,000.
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Filed under: Funding, Libraries, News, Patrons and Users
About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.