[Libs-Or] March LTLO

Tue Mar 1 08:55:43 PST 2011

Letter To Libraries Online

An Electronic Newsletter from the Oregon State Library.......Volume 21, Issue 3, March 2011

Library Board News

STATE LIBRARY BOARD OUTSOURCES WEB HOSTING

At their meeting on February 7th, the State Library Board of Trustees agreed with the recommendation of the LSTA Advisory Council to outsource the hosting of Plinkit websites and the Oregon School Library Information System. MaryKay Dahlgreen presented the recommendation to the Board as a way to provide more reliable service to the libraries that depend on these websites being always available. After the initial startup cost is paid, the cost of remote hosting is estimated to be lower than hosting the sites in-house. In other business the Board voted to support HB 2649 that would create an interim committee to study school library services in the state and HB 2859 that would establish an interim committee to study the preservation of heritage resources in the state. The Board's support will be contingent on support from the Governor's Office for the bills. The Board also saw a demonstration by Board member Aletha Bonebrake of the new Evergreen integrated library system that serves the Sage Library Network in Eastern Oregon. The next meeting of the Board will be held on Wednesday, April 6th, at the State Library in Salem.

STATE LIBRARIAN ANNOUNCES RETIREMENT AT THE END OF 2011

At the February 7th Board meeting, the State Librarian announced to the Board that he planned to retire from his post at the end of the year. Scheppke has been the Oregon State Librarian for 20 years and has worked at the State Library for 25 years. He had previously told the Board that he planned to retire at the end of 2012, however, he explained that he decided to change his plans, in part to allow the new State Librarian to better participate in planning for the 2013-15 biennium. State Library Board Chair Sue Burkholder will work with the Library's Human Resources Manager, Diane Ballard, to begin to develop a process to recruit the new Oregon State Librarian. Burkholder noted at the meeting that she had some experience in this, having served on the selection committee when Scheppke was hired 20 years ago.
State Library News

ASSISTANCE AVAILABLE FOR LIBRARY SUPPORT STAFF CERTIFICATION PROGRAM

The Support Staff Division of the Oregon Library Association (OLA) and the Oregon State Library are offering financial assistance to library support staff applying for certification in the American Library Association's Library Support Staff Certification (LSSC) Program. The LSSC Program offers library employees the opportunity to achieve recognition for their experience, enhance library service, and increase skills and knowledge in areas like the foundations of librarianship, technology, and communication. The LSSC Program is funded by a grant to ALA from the federal Institute for Museum and Library Services, and managed by the ALA-Allied Professional Association. The Registration Assistance Awards of one-half of the registration fee are part of this grant. The Support Staff Division of OLA and the Oregon State Library will be offering four Registration Assistance Awards this spring. The Awards are for $175, one-half of the LSSC registration/application fee. Successful award recipients will be asked to pay the remainder of the registration fee with their own funds or funds obtained from other sources. An application form to apply for the Registration Assistance Awards is available from the Support Staff Division of OLA on their website: http://www.olaweb.org/mc/page.do?sitePageId=61036. The deadline to submit the application is May 6, 2011. Support staff from all types of libraries are invited to apply. The recipients of the Award will be chosen by a random drawing before May 25, 2011.

GET HELP WITH YOUR LIBRARY SERVICES AND TECHNOLOGY ACT GRANT PROPOSAL

The application packet for FY2012 grant proposals is available on the web through the LSTA Competitive Grant Program<http://oregon.gov/OSL/LD/LSTAcomp.shtml> page. Short proposals are due April 22, 2011. If you are working on an idea for a grant, feel free to contact Ann Reed at (503) 378-5027 or email ann.reed at state.or.us<mailto:ann.reed at state.or.us>. We can answer any questions you may have and be a good sounding board for your idea.
Other Library News

PRESIDENT OBAMA PROPOSES REDUCED FUNDING FOR LIBRARIES

On February 14th President Obama released his budget recommendations for FY 2012 that begins in October of this year. His recommendation for the Library Services and Technology Act grants to states was $161,345,000, a reduction of $11.2 million (- 6.5%) from the funding anticipated for FY 2011 (the Congress has not completed their work on the FY 2011 budget). His recommendation for the entire budget of the Institute of Museum and Library Services, of which LSTA funding is a part, was $242,605,000, a 14% reduction from the anticipated FY 2011 budget. According to figures released by IMLS, Oregon's allotment of LSTA funds under the President's proposal is estimated at $2,224,535, about $135,000 less than Oregon expects to receive for FY 2011. "We are disappointed that the President proposes to cut federal library funding at a time when the demand for library services has never been greater," said State Librarian Jim Scheppke.

ATTORNEY GENERAL'S PUBLIC RECORDS REFORMS PRESERVE LIBRARY EXEMPTIONS

Oregon Attorney General John Kroger has proposed House Bill 3319 as part of his efforts to reform Oregon public records laws and make government more transparent. The bill would eliminate the exemptions from disclosure for some public records that are currently exempt. However, the exemptions that have been part of state law for many years for libraries remain in place in Kroger's bill. The library records exemptions are included in Section 40 of the bill in a section called "Personal Privacy." The exempted records include library circulation records, the name, address, telephone number, and email address of a library patron. Assuming these exemptions continue in state law, libraries are not required to disclose these records in response to a public records request. Every library should have a policy in place that details under what circumstances library records might be disclosed. The State Library website has an Attorney General's Letter of Advice<http://www.oregon.gov/OSL/LD/resources/laws/attgen.shtml> from 1995 that describes the need for libraries to set policy about disclosure of library records.

STATE LIBRARIANS PASS RESOLUTION OPPOSING "EXCLUSIVES"

At their January 7th meeting, the Chief Officers of State Library Agencies, representing state libraries in the 50 states and the District of Columbia, passed a resolution expressing opposition to the growing practice of publishers giving exclusive contracts to their content on the Web. Examples of this are the exclusive contracts for content from the Harvard Business Review and Consumer Reports. Recently all of the content from Time, Inc. was awarded under an exclusive contract. The Harvard Business Review and Consumer Reports are unavailable to Oregon library users of the Gale databases, because Gale does not have the exclusive contract. The COSLA resolution states that "provider exclusives will serve only to increase the cost of providing services and [will] limit access to licensed content." COSLA "supports multiple distribution channels for licensed content, opposes exclusive contracts ... and support[s] competition through innovative methods for delivery and use of licensed content."

MULTNOMAH AND NEWPORT LIBRARIES OFFER FREE MUSIC DOWNLOADS

The Oregonian reported that two Oregon public libraries now offer free music downloads from a service called Freegal<http://www.freegalmusic.com/homes/aboutus>. The service provides downloads from the Sony catalog of about a half million tunes. Library cardholders can download up to three songs a week in the MP3 format that can be played on a variety of devices. The Seattle Public Library began offering the service in January and logged 12,300 downloads in the first three weeks. They told the Oregonian that library card requests have spiked since they announced the service, bringing new users to the library. Multnomah County Library is paying $87,000 for a six month trial of the service.
P.S. (From the State Librarian)

In these days of growing fiscal austerity at all levels of government, it's important to be able to communicate to citizens the cost and value of the services they pay for. When it comes to public libraries, this has been attempted in a number of ways.

On our Plinkit websites we have a value calculator that we borrowed from Maine. So if, for example, you check out six books a month and ask one reference question, the calculator tells you that is worth $97. That's interesting, but the information lacks a context. If you don't know what you're paying, you don't know if this is a good deal or not.

To create that context you might turn to the annual statistics for Oregon public libraries that we publish on our website. We report on the annual per capita expenditures on public library services for each library, and an average for the state. In FY 2010 the average per capita expenditures for the state was $48.35.

There is a temptation to use this number to calculate what the average household pays for library service. So, for example, you might want to multiply $48.35 by the number of people in an average household to estimate the per household cost of public library services in the state. This would be a mistake. Why? Because households aren't the only generators of property tax revenue. Businesses, apartments, and farms, etc., pay property taxes too. Per capita expenditures is a good way to compare what different communities are spending on libraries, but it shouldn't be used to determine what households are paying for their service.

The only way to determine what (owner-occupied) households are paying for public libraries is to apply the property tax rate for a given library to the assessed value of a residence. The State Library has analyzed this from time to time. The last time we did this a few years ago, it turned out that the average household in Oregon was paying $0.57 per $1,000 of assessed valuation for public library services. If you take the median assessed value of a residence in Oregon of about $132,600 (January, 2010), and if that household was paying the average cost of public library services, they would be paying about $76 a year or about $6.30 a month.

But again, I think more context is needed. Jamie LaRue, who is the library director in Douglas County, Colorado, demonstrates how this can be done in a recent blog post<http://laruesviews.blogspot.com/2011/01/february-3-2011-best-is-bargain.html>. When he talks to community groups he asks them how much they spend a month for their broadband service (answer: $30 to $80 a month). He asks them how much they spend for cable or satellite TV service (answer: $50 to $300). How much do they spend for cell phone service ($30 to $150)? How much do they spend for Netflix ($9 to $25)?

Then he asks, "And what good do these costs do your community?" The answer, of course, is nothing.

Now the value and cost of the public library, at say, $6.30 a month, comes into better focus. - Jim Scheppke
Contacts at the Oregon State Library

Library Development: 503-378-2525, MaryKay Dahlgreen<mailto:marykay.dahlgreen at state.or.us>, Mary Mayberry<mailto:mary.l.mayberry at state.or.us>, Darci Hanning<mailto:darci.hanning at state.or.us>, Ann Reed<mailto:ann.reed at state.or.us>, Jennifer Maurer<mailto:jennifer.maurer at state.or.us>, Katie Anderson<mailto:katie.anderson at state.or.us>.

Talking Book and Braille Services: 503-378-5389, Susan Westin<mailto:susan.b.westin at state.or.us>.

Government Research Services: 503-378-5030, Robert Hulshof-Schmidt<mailto:robert.hulshof-schmidt at state.or.us>.

State Librarian: 503-378-4367, Jim Scheppke<mailto:jim.b.scheppke at state.or.us>.

LTLO Editor: 503-378-2464, Jessica Rondema<mailto:jessica.rondema at state.or.us> . Letter to Libraries Online is published monthly by the Oregon State Library. Editorial office: LTLO, Oregon State Library, 250 Winter St. NE, Salem, Oregon 97301-3950, 503-378-2464, editor: Jessica Rondema<mailto:jessica.rondema at state.or.us>. Letter to Libraries Online is available free of charge and is available only in electronic form on the publications page at the Oregon State Library's homepage: http://www.oregon.gov/OSL. Opinions expressed in the articles are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Oregon State Library. News items or articles should be sent to Jessica Rondema<mailto:jessica.rondema at state.or.us>, or mailed to LTLO, Oregon State Library, 250 Winter St. NE, Salem, Oregon 97301-3950.

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