From Oregon Business:
“County commissioners, especially in rural conservative counties, believe libraries have overstayed their welcome, and should be defunded,” says Cathy Shaw, a Jackson County Library Board Member.
In Curry County, when the timber money fizzled, so did the library. Few Oregonians hate taxes as much as residents of Curry County, says Jeremy Skinner, a librarian for the Curry County Library System. Even when timber money was still flowing, he says, “the county government wasn’t very good about funding things like libraries.”
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Elsewhere, librarians are trying to convince voters of their institutions’ value by changing the library’s traditional function of providing free books and Internet. In business terms, they’re shifting their value proposition.
About Gary Price
