The Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library will close the Central Library on Thursdays and reduce hours at all branches by a collective 26 percent to help reduce a projected $4 million revenue shortfall next year, it announced Tuesday.
The cutback in hours, effective Oct. 3, should help save about $1.5 million and keep all branches open in 2011, library officials
said.
“The new schedule is directly responsive to the public’s call for keeping libraries open while we work to achieve
the necessary savings to sustain services,” Library CEO Laura Bramble said in a written statement.
Hours of service are staggered so patrons will have a close alternative if their typical branch is closed.
All locations will be open Monday through Thursday, except the downtown Central Library, which will be closed on Thursdays.
Branches will be closed either on Fridays or Saturdays, with a majority open on Saturdays.
Sunday library services will be available at the Glendale, Lawrence, Nora, Pike, Southport, Warren and Wayne branches, as
well as Central Library and the InfoZone at The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis.
Hours for the InfoZone and Flanner House branch at the Flanner House Community Center will remain the same.
The library system attributes its revenue shortfall to property-tax caps and lower-than-anticipated property-tax collections.
It expects to achieve more savings from a $1 million reduction in the library’s books-and-materials budget, as well
as cuts in printing, postage, utilities and data-communications costs.
Also, higher fees for such penalties as failing to pick up held books and for replacing library cards could result in a modest
revenue bump, the library said.
The library system's new schedule is available here.
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First, you misstated my comments. I never wrote anything about repeating bad mistakes. You and I simply disagree about what constitutes a mistake, and just because you disagree with me that does not make me a hypocrite (but, it does show your immaturity by showing you cannot engage in a reasoned argument with another person without baseless name-calling). I believe the purposes of taxation is to provide a reasonable level of public services, not to fund private enterprises of any sort, and especially not to pay for privately owned sports teams like the Colts or Pacers. So, I find nothing inconsistent about saying it is a mistake to give more money (or ANY money) to privately-owned sports teams, but not a mistake to give more money to a Library system, which is primarily suffering from lower tax revenues due to the recession and property tax caps, and not necessarily because its operating expenses have increased.
Second, I never said the Library didn't need to make changes. But, the fact is that it is making changes, including laying off staff, reducing expenditures on acquisitions of new books and supplies, and cutting back operating hours. I think the Library has done far more than it should have to do to bring down costs, and now the City-County Council and the Mayor need to do their part, which means either taking funds from somewhere else, such as taking back some of the money recently allocated to the Pacers, or supporting the Library's shortfall levy appeal, and then figuring out a way to get more funding to the Library in next year's budget, and if that requires increasing the county income tax, so be it.
Second,
So, I guess that means you will have to address the substance of my comments, rather than trying to throw out distractions.
I love reading your posts where out of one side of your mouth you say "the bad decisions of the past (ie construction, Glendale) have nothing to do with current condtions" , and then you say out of the other side of your mouth "we made other bad decisions in the past (ie Pacers, Colts), come on, let's make some more"...you are a hypocrite.
No matter how you make your case, the reality is that the Library doesn't have the operating funds, and needs to make changes. Good for them. Maybe now other city officials can look to them and have the courage to make the tough choices that are coming.
Too bad you can't apply your knowledge of the Dewey Decimal System to another career.
It would seem the only "elephant" that is being ignored happens to be the one sitting on your head and cutting off the blood flow to your brain.
Closing the libraries is much like deciding to close the hospitals one day a week to cut costs. But then the powers that be, don't think libraries are very important. There is something wrong with giving away tens of millions of dollars to sport organizations worth hundreds of millions of dollars, but telling our kids and their parents there is no place in our society for libraries, schools, education. Go figure. But then Ballard has the deep pockets of business concerns. Maybe he is setting up to selling the library to a foreign corporation? Then tell us all how much money we are saving.
Looks like the homeless and the college students will need to find some other place to hang out on Thursdays....
That being said, this is a little like the neighbor who bought the 72" plasma TV and can't afford the cable bill. When you look at the insane amount of money spent on the "monument to ego" downtown, and the stupid decision to move out of Broad Ripple Park and into Glendale mall, it makes you realize that these people should never be left to make another decision involving the spending of my tax dollars.
In deciding how to spend public money, there are only four things voters care about -- public safety (police, fire, EMS), public works (keeping the streets clean, in good repair and the garbage picked up), education (schools and libraries) and recreation (parks). I'm not 100% sure the Pacers are recreation, but I am sure that if the city fathers went carefully through the budget they would find more than $1.5 million needed to keep the branches open.
Who didn't see this coming