Oregon: “Rural Libraries Turning More to Private Sector For Lifeline”
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
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. Gary is also the co-founder of infoDJ an innovation research consultancy supporting corporate product and business model teams with just-in-time fact and insight finding.
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