Reprinted from the December, 2010, Clifton Public Library Newletter

On November 10th, Lincoln Trails held a meeting of library trustees and directors to discuss reciprocal borrowing within the library system. Reciprocal borrowing is the term used to describe a patron who visits a library that is not their home library to check out materials. The Illinois State Library and Lincoln Trail Libraries System, in particular, have been strong advocates for reciprocal borrowing.

There are great advantages to reciprocal borrowing, but there are down sides as well. Reciprocal borrowing is a problem when patrons neglect their home libraries in favor of non-home libraries. Typically patrons choose reciprocal borrowing because of either geographical convenience ("it's closer to where I work or shop"), or selection ("they have so many copies of the new releases!"). There are two consequences: first, in a period of shrinking revenues and diminished state aid, many libraries are challenged to maintain service levels, so reciprocal borrowers drain local resources from local taxpayers. Second, reciprocal borrowing reduces local taxpayers' motivation to take care of their own facility, especially when a neighboring facility is superior (and likely has a higher tax rate); in other words, since someone else is paying for it, taxpayers neglect local responsibility.

The reciprocal borrowing problem is greatest where there is the greatest disparity between facilities and/or tax rates. This is especially true in the Champaign/Urbana area, where a giant urban area is surrounded by numerous rural towns, and where many of those rural inhabitants either shop or work in the metro area. 

Given the economic difficulty facing many of the libraries within Lincoln Trails (and also Lincoln Trails itself, which will cease to exist July 1, 2011), expect a revision to the reciprocal borrowing policy in the future. A likely revision will be that patrons will only be able to pick up interlibrary loan requests at their home library. This is a logical choice, since the manpower costs of processing an interlibrary loan request should, by rights, be paid for by patron's home library.

At the Clifton Public Library, we encourage our patrons to be responsible reciprocal borrowers now and before any such changes are enacted. The easiest and most effective way to be a responsible reciprocal borrower is to pick up all interlibrary loan requests at your home library.

This article was originally published in the December, 2010, Newsletter.

While public libraries are funded primarily with local property taxes, the State of Illinois does provide opportunities for funds to libraries through grant programs, including the Per Capita and Equalization Aid Grants. The state's grant funds are available with strings attached; that is, there are annual applications and requirements to receive state money.

One significant development from Fiscal Year 2010 (which ended June 30, 2010) was that the General Assembly reduced State Library funding, and the Secretary of State opted to use Library Services and Technology Act funds from the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services to maintain the Per Capita Grant program. To put this another way:

In FY 2010, Illinois used federal money to maintain library grant programs that the state budget could not sustain.

Now we are in fiscal year 2011, which began July 2010. In October, 2010, the Office of the Comptroller reported:

There is a strong possibility that the backlog of payables on June 30, 2011 could greatly exceed the backlog at the start of this fiscal year. The level of fiscal year 2011 obligations unaddressed at the end of June could total as much as $8 billion or significantly more if the over $3.7 billion in fiscal year 2011 General Funds pension commitments remain unaddressed. The structural imbalance in the current budget, combined with higher debt service costs and the loss of federal stimulus revenues, creates the very real possibility that the Governor and General assembly will face a working deficit of $15 billion or more when the fiscal year 2012 budget is crafted early next year. This deficit would represent more than half of the current General Funds budget. The ability of the state to maintain any reasonable level of education and social service funding - and just as importantly, to pay for those services on a timely basis - will be severely jeopardized.

In other words:

The State of Illinois will not have any money, either state or federal, to fund even essential services, let alone library grant programs.

For FY2010, the Per Capita Grant program paid approximately $1.02 per resident to participating libraries. The Clifton Public Library was lucky; we were one of the library's the state funded through LSTA funds, and received our Per Capita money in March, 2010. Many libraries who were not funded with LSTA funds have not received their Per Capita funds yet, and the availability of these funds is doubtful.

While Per Capita funding from the State of Illinois is only a small part of a library's operating budget (in our case 4%), it seems probable that the Per Capita and Equalization Aid Grant Programs will be unfunded for FY2011, resulting in tighter library budgets across the state.

If you’ve read the papers, you know that the State of Illinois has a school funding issue. As recently as October 15th, Central Unit #4 reported at its website, www.cusd4.org, that the state owes the district over $670,000. Among the many other services that the state has been unable to fund at promised levels are the regional library systems.

Currently Illinois is divided into nine regional library systems. These systems provide support that modern library patrons consider essential. Regional library systems:

• Deliver interlibrary loan items, controlling the flow of over 30 million items annually within and between library systems;
• Manage software used for circulation, allowing requests, check-outs, and reciprocal access to patrons throughout a library system;
• Provide guidance and expertise to improve the quality of library services.

By December, many of these library systems will run out of reserve money. To date, regional library systems have received only 47 percent of the funding from the July 2009 to June 2010 period, and no funds at all for the fiscal year that began in July 2010.

While politicians point fingers at one another and then promise to plug the budget deficit with the same wagging fingers, the reality of unpaid bills is forcing regional library systems to take action even before the election this November. Many library systems have suspended all services except top priority services such as interlibrary loan delivery. As a last resort, library systems have begun merger discussions with one another to attempt to cut costs through shared resources. Despite merger discussions, it is likely that many library systems will run out of funds to support even critical services before mergers can be completed unless the State Comptroller is able to expend the funds owed.

Both the Clifton Public Library and Central Citizens’ Library District are members of Lincoln Trails Libraries System (LTLS). Fortunately LTLS management has financial resources to last into 2011. LTLS is currently in discussions with the three other regional library districts serving the southern part of the state: Lewis and Clark, Rolling Prairie, and Shawnee. If consolidation occurs, the region created would stretch from Central Citizens’ Library in northern Iroquois County all the way south past Carbondale to Cairo and Metropolis on the Ohio River at the southern tip of the state. It is difficult to imagine the resources required to manage delivery in such a vast area. It’s also difficult to imagine that the new district will be able to maintain the level of support current users have come to expect.

Library system changes and the state’s funding nightmare will filter down to affect local library patrons. Membership in a regional library means that a public library no longer operates in isolation. When the library system suffers, the services available to local library users will be affected. The bulk of these effects will be in interlibrary loans, but there will be unforeseeable results as well.

Add libraries to the list of casualties of Illinois’s financial mismanagement and expect the fallout to last far longer than the next governor’s tenure.

The Future of the Book. from IDEO on Vimeo.