host posted on November 29, 2010 09:30
By Ben Montgomery
North Jefferson News
NORTH JEFFERSON — North Jefferson County libraries may have some relief from severe budget cuts thanks to a new fundraiser.
The Jefferson County Library Cooperative is hub for the county’s 21 library systems (totaling 39 libraries), including the Warrior, Fultondale and Gardendale libraries. The cooperative provides services such as delivery of books for homebound citizens, card services and others for the libraries, forming a sort of symbiotic network between them.
“We’re like the glue that holds everyone together,” said cooperative director Pat Ryan.
Ryan said the cooperative had received the bulk of its funding from the Jefferson County Commission for over 30 years, but budget cuts finally forced them to reduce the cooperative’s budget by half — from $1 million to $500,000. The rest of the cooperative’s funding comes from private donations and membership fees.
All three north Jefferson libraries have some sort of plan for a new building in the works.
“Gardendale Library is in the building phase. Our fundraising is going towards us right now,” said Ryan Rowell, assistant director of the Gardendale-Martha Moore Public Library.
Fultondale Public Library’s planning is still in its infancy, and the Warrior Public Library’s project is in limbo, pending action from its board of trustees.
“That’s why we’ve never tried to have a fundraiser before, because we didn’t want to interfere with the individual libraries’ fundraisers,” said Ryan. “The cooperative is very behind the scenes.”
The fundraising is quiet as well; aside from placing bookmarks in libraries with the cooperative’s plight written on them, the cooperative’s only other fundraising method is asking for donations from its 362,000 members. A direct mailing and emailing campaign has already netted $2,000 since the campaign started, including a $1,000 check received on Tuesday. Ryan said raising $500,000 is unrealistic; instead, the cooperative’s fundraising goal is $50,000.
Rowell said he is most worried about the cooperative’s courier and delivery services being cut. The courier services allow libraries to borrow books from each other for patrons to check out.
“That’s one of our biggest services. If we lost it, that wouldn’t be good at all,” he said.
Ryan said cutting delivery services would be a last resort. The cooperative has had to make some cuts of its own to make ends meet; patrons who worked inside Jefferson County used to get a free membership card, but now all cards come with a $50 fee.
“A case can be made that the services at the library are still worth more than the $50, but I still wish we didn’t have to charge,” he said.
People interested in making a donation can visit www.jclc.org and click on the “donate now” button in the pop-up window.