Cuyahoga Saves Children/YA Librarians—For Now
By SLJ Staff -- School Library Journal, 8/13/2009
They’re safe for now. None of the 41 positions recently eliminated by Ohio’s Cuyahoga County Public Library includes children’s or young adult librarians.
“We made a conscious decision based on the library’s six priorities” to maintain the 140 employees who directly serve youth in our system, says Tracy Strobel, the library’s deputy director. “Two of those six priorities address the importance of youth and early literacy.”
Following a 31 percent budget cut at the state level for all libraries in Ohio, Cuyahoga was forced to axe the positions held by union, managerial, and confidential staff and to close 21 of its 28 branches on Sundays. This move, along with resignation/retirement incentives, pay freezes, and changes in healthcare contributions is expected to save the library $4 million, explains Strobel. The library is also doubling its daily overdue fines to ten cents.
Other causalities? A $3.2 million cut in the library’s $11 million materials budget for this year and next—something that will certainly be felt by young patrons—and the elimination of the interlibrary loan department. The library’s memberships in OhioLINK and SearchOhio, two large borrowing cooperatives with a combined collection of 18 million more items, allowed patrons to obtain almost any item they requested.
But the bloodletting may not be over yet. If the state makes further cuts, “then we have to consider other options,” Strobel says.
Library Executive Director Sari Feldman says this is a difficult time, “especially when the public needs our services more than ever.”
Meanwhile, the Wright Memorial Public Library hopes to save about $41,000 by closing its doors from August 16-23. The drop in state funding is about $368,000 less than what the library received in 2009 than in 2008, and the cuts have already resulted in an indefinite postponement of a much-anticipated remodeling of the library’s youth services and audiovisual areas.
The Girard Free Library has had $400,000 slashed from its budget over the last eight years—and more cuts are expected in January.
As a result, there have been layoffs, shortened hours, fewer book orders, and a reduction of programs. But the library says its trying its best to preserve programs for children and youth.
