From The Florida Times-Union/Florida.com: Faced with a requirement to cut $4.66 million from its budget, the Jacksonville Public Library board has proposed reducing library service hours by 264 hours a week. This 24 percent reduction will come along with the elimination of 71 full-time positions. That includes 41 vacancies and 30 filled jobs, including librarians […]
Public Libraries: Jacksonville (FL) Public Library Plans to Cut Hours and Eliminate 71 Full Time Jobs
Filed by on July 9, 2012
Article: “UC Berkeley’s Libraries Next Chapter May Be Cuts”
Filed by on June 18, 2012
From the SF Chronicle: Blame the decrepit state budget, inflation, a shift from paper to electronic research – or all three. But Berkeley has reduced its library spending by 12 percent since 2008, even as the University of Michigan, its main public competitor, has spent 24 percent more. Berkeley now spends about $50 million to […]
Michigan: Royal Oak Library Cutting Hours, Upping Fines
Filed by on June 4, 2012
From The Daily Tribune: Library hours will be reduced starting Monday and fines for overdue books will go up as the Board of Trustees uses every trick in the book to deal with a $300,000 budget shortfall. The Royal Oak Public Library, 222 E. 11 Mile Road, will be open four fewer hours a week […]
California: Sacramento Public Library Closures Scheduled Due to Staff Furloughs
Filed by on May 7, 2012
From The Sacramento Bee: The Friday closures are scheduled May 18, and June 15 and 29. “Funding shortfalls have left the library with few choices to maintain services to the public,” Library Director Rivkah Sass said in a written statement. The library was faced with either laying off 15 to 18 staff members, requiring the […]
UC Berkeley: “Teams of Library Employees to Investigate Streamlining Measures”
Filed by on April 23, 2012
From The Daily Californian: In a bid to improve UC Berkeley libraries while mitigating fiscal deficits, library administrators have tasked teams of employees with exploring ways to continue library services and expand digital access to information in a more streamlined way. After presenting the teams’ proposals to the Library Committee of the Berkeley Division of […]
Public Libraries: Small Eastern Connecticut Libraries Feeling Pinch
Filed by on April 17, 2012
From The Bulletin (Norwich, CT): “Your library is your future,” reads a sign inside the door of the Central Village Library, underneath a larger sign asking for donations. The juxtaposition is appropriate — without donations, the small library doesn’t have much of a future, Librarian Shirley DeFosse said Monday. The town of Plainfield defunded two […]
“Small Indiana Libraries Team Up, Share to Stay Open”
Filed by on April 8, 2012
From the AP (via Muncie Star-Press): Consolidations can have financial benefits, such as by reducing technology and administrative costs, said deputy state librarian Jim Corridan. He said merged libraries can cost less because they often don’t need two of everything, including administrators, subscriptions to the same databases or licenses for the same software. [Clip] “We’ve […]
Indianapolis Public Library Plans to Restore Some Hours at All Branches & Some 2011 Indy Library Statistics
Filed by on February 24, 2012
From The Indianapolis Star: During the first full year of reduced hours at Indianapolis library branches, visits nose-dived 22 percent. Patrons checked out 12 percent fewer books and other items. But new Indianapolis Public Library CEO Jackie Nytes aims to reverse last year’s drops — in large part by restoring about two-thirds of cuts made […]
Goodbye, State Funding for California Libraries
Filed by on February 6, 2012
From KALW Radio: The bad news is that state funding for California libraries has been completely eliminated. There’s not really any good news about that except that it was expected. This past July, state library funding was sliced in half, and there was a trigger amendment attached to the budget that would eliminate state funding […]
Preprint: Article: "How Users Search the Library From a Single Search Box"
Filed by on January 10, 2012
Title: “How Users Search the Library From a Single Search Box” Authors: Cory Lown, Tito Sierra, and Josh Boyer Affiliation: North Carolina St. University (All Authors) Source: College and Research Libraries Abstract Academic libraries are turning increasingly to unified search solutions to simplify search and discovery of library resources. Unfortunately, very little research has been […]
