As reported in the Boston Globe, the public libraries in Freetown, Norton, Hubbardston and Wareham have lost their certification “because, in the state’s view, the communities went too far in slashing their budgets.” The coastal community of Rockport also faced budgetary pressures and received the funding necessary to maintain certification without applying for a waiver.
A quick analysis of revenue/resident* for these communities tells the story. Or does it?
Note the tenor of the Rockport article. Its opening statement is immediately supportive & positive: “Amid difficult economic times — and when library use is on the rise — Rockport Public Library director Hope Coffman has been forced to reduce labor and operating costs to maintain a level-funded budget for next fiscal year.” These are challenging times — the community needs these services — the Director is stepping up to meet the need. The article then laudes the library’s cost containment achievements, the work of volunteers and the charitable support of Library Friends.
The situation in my town (and probably across the nation) is a carbon copy of the one in Rockport. The economy is down, library use is up, and our Director has expanded the austerity measures she’s employed for years now in order to deliver services with the help of volunteers and Friends.
Despite these similarities, the tone of newspaper articles on West Boylston’s crisis and the communities that forfeited certification this year was different from Rockport’s. A lack of funds wasn’t all they described. They implicitly conveyed:
- a lack of understanding for the value of public libraries
- a lack of potential for productive intra-community dialogue
- a lack of appreciation for the emergent opportunity to reach out to surrounding communities and the Commonwealth to re-articulate the vital public good served by our libraries, to re-evaluate our collective options and re-think new means of nurturing our public libraries given the resources available to us.
* Source = Massachusetts At-A-Glance Reports for each community
