Carnegie Libraries still in trouble

Just how important are libraries in an age dominated by Google, Wikipedia and a lingering… Just how important are libraries in an age dominated by Google, Wikipedia and a lingering recession that has states scrambling for cash?

That’s the question asked these days by both the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh and the Pennsylvania General Assembly. To help find an answer, the Carnegie Library system has launched a public outreach campaign called “Tell Us Your Story.”

The library has received hundreds of letters since the campaign’s inception, said spokeswoman Suzanne Thinnes. All of the letters voice strong support for a Pittsburgh institution on the precipice of what she called “a funding disaster.”

One of those stories, written by a young woman from Costa Rica identified only as Miriam, captured the campaign’s spirit.

Miriam writes that she first visited a Pittsburgh library when she was 9-years-old and a new immigrant to the United States.

“I loved to read in Costa Rica, but I had never seen a library. My grandmother always sent us books,” Miriam wrote in her letter, published in part on the library’s website. “A couple of days after we moved, my mother took me to get a library card. The first book I took out was a Nancy Drew, ‘Super Mystery.’ I will never forget that first day.”

Miriam’s story is echoed by many others, Thinnes said. She thinks the outpouring of support stands in a strong juxtaposition to the nearly $2 million operating deficit the library system faces under the 2010-11 Pennsylvania state budget.

That deficit is what inspired the Tell Us Your Story initiative, along with a score of other programs, including a burgeoning Facebook group and a grassroots lobbying campaign.

Thinnes and company hope the measures might convince the local and state government to redirect more public funding into the floundering libraries. More money, she said, could be used to prevent potential branch closures slated for 2011.

“We’ve seen huge cuts, unbelievable cuts in the past two years,” Thinnes said. “We lost $600,000 this year alone, including a large part of the funding for the Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped. If we don’t see an upturn, we’re going to have to enact the 2009 action plan.”

The 2009 plan, which was put on delay by the library’s board of trustees until 2011, involves closing a number of underused branches in Beechview, the West End, Lawrenceville and Hazelwood.

A ferocious public outcry forced the library system to delay the closures last year, Thinnes said, though current funding levels make closures next year seem all but certain.

To avoid that fate, the library system established a Task Force for Sustainable Funding that is aggressively investigating potential revenue sources.

Options currently under investigation include everything from volunteer contribution programs to new taxes and service consolidations. Library officials expect a full report from the task force by late September, when the group will present its findings to the board of directors.

Throughout the summer, the task force facilitated discussion between city residents and lawmakers through a series of forums and workshops designed to highlight the libraries’ fiscal crunch.

State Rep. Dan Frankel, D-Allegheny, showed up to one of the first forums in May. There he said that, unlike some of his colleagues, he does not view the library’s budget as a discretionary item.

“We need to find a balance between fiscal responsibility and generating additional revenue. It’s not just about cutting spending all the time,” he said.

Now that the budget has passed, library officials and community members say Frankel and his House colleagues should have considered other options than the six-figure funding reduction in this year’s budget.

For all of these reasons, Thinnes said the state of affairs has gotten desperate. So in mid-July, the library team approached the local government to help fill the widening gap.

“We filed a budget request to our primary funder asking for a 9.8 percent increase,” Thinnes said. “We won’t know till September whether that will plug the gap.”