Tonight at the Old Church, the Friends of the Multnomah County Library kick off a two-part library funding campaign: a May bid to renew the library levy that’s set to expire in June, and a push to put a library tax district on the ballot in the fall. (Read more about the numbers.) At tonight’s kickoff event, authors Jean M. Auel, Molly Gloss, Ursula K. Le Guin, Phillip Margolin, and Kim Stafford will talk about the value of libraries. It’s a free event, but I’m sure they’ll be passing the hat around, as well as signing up volunteers for the campaign.
That’s tonight at 6 pm, details here.
IS THAT A CHINESE KNOCK-OFF HARRY POTTER TOY?
Nancy Pearl got a sex change? Didn’t hear about that.
The Multnomah County Library currently has the highest budget in the country for library systems serving similar sized populations (500,000-1,000,000). With a budget of 63 million, serving 735,000 people, the per capita expenditure is $85.71. According to the Library Journal, this is 2.32 times the per capita expenditure for similar sized library systems, which is $36.92.
The Seattle Public Library has a budget that is 20% lower than MCL, yet it has a larger collection, 7 more branches and is open longer hours than MCL.
Multnomah County Library has an annual per capita circulation of 30 items. Seattle Public Library has an annual per capita circulation of 19.8 items. Despite having a smaller collection and fewer branches, MCL’s annual per capita circulation is over 50% higher than SPL’s.
I wonder if the Seattle branches waste money on fancy security guards.
Both the Cuyahoga County Library in Ohio and the King County Library in Washington have higher circulations (per capita or actual ) than MCL, more and newer branches, and lower per capita operating budgets.
Circulation alone does not begin to account for MCL’s huge budget, which has increased 40 per cent in the last few years. Besides, a large part of MCL’s circulation figures are repeated renewals done online, which costs MCL nothing.