Sunday, December 12, 2010

Daily Thoughts 12/12/2010 (Budget, Rethinking Information Work)

Joseph Pulitzer. The New York ... Digital ID: 410350. New York Public Library

Cigarette Card of Joseph Pulitzer. The New York World. (ca. 1885-1890) 

Daily Thoughts 12/12/2010 

This morning I finished checking a lot of links on this site to make sure they work. I also checked some line spacing. It is the first editing I have done in a little while.

I have started reading Rethinking Information Work A Career Guide For Librarians And Other Information Professionals by G. Kim Dority. It starts by asking the reader to start keeping a career journal and reading job postings and articles on careers.

Library Budget 

This is the statement by Mayor Young about the library. http://www.mvinquirer.com/mayor_young%20on%20library.htm  I am not going to interpret it. There is a lot of work that needs to be done for both grants and fundraising.

If we looked at the average of all sources other than government,local, and state funds; including grants, fundraising, fines for materials, and fees, it still averages out to 8% of funds. If we were operating at the national average it would amount to $280,000 from all sources. This is if our budget is $3.5 million dollars. If we made a campaign, it still would not likely meet our needs. We would still not be able to reach $4 million, it might be likely we would be at least $220,000 in debt by the end of the year. http://www.ala.org/ala/professionalresources/libfactsheets/alalibraryfactsheet04.cfm  Our foundation is new and our friends group may need a little help. If you are in Mount Vernon please help the library.

I am hoping that there are some ways to reduce costs as well.  We already went through a cost reduction discussion for everything.

This leaves us in a position where the library has to ask for more money to keep the library running.  It will be just like the last year where we borrowed funds at the end of the year.

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