Charlotte-Mecklenburg Library

I am a resident of Mecklenburg County and a proud supporter of and volunteer in our public libraries. Many of you may have heard in the past couple of weeks the major budget issues going on in our library. The Public Library had to return $2 million to the County to cover a gap in the budget for the fiscal year 09-10 and then next year the public libraries are looking at a 50% funding decrease from the county. To fix the short-term budget gap the library originally planned to close 12 branches and lay off 140+ people, however there was a huge public out cry and the library came up with a new plan involving staff pay cuts, cuts in services and hours, and no collections budget for the rest of the year, but they are keeping all of the branches open.

Is it sacreligious for a future librarian to say that I think they should have closed some of the library branches? Because that is how I feel. I really do love our public libraries, however there are some which are located very close to each other. In the small area that comprises downtown Charlotte there are 3 libraries (Main, Imaginon, and Check-it Outlet). I personally think one of those 3 (Check-it outlet) could have been closed without a lot of loss of service or convienence. There are a couple other branches which could have been closed as well because they are located very near other branches.

I am not trying to be tright, honestly I wish none of the branches had to close and no one had to be laid off, but if the library had to cut $2 million dollars I think there are better ways to do it then how they did it. Cutting the collection budget, services offered, and salaries will make for more grumpy patrons and grumpy librarians, than if patrons had to drive an extra mile to get to a library branch. I know some library employees who now say they are going to have to find second jobs in order to make ends meet with this pay cut.

In hard fiscal times like these there are hard decisions to be made. It scares me even more to think about what the library will try to do to cope with a 50% budget decrease for next year. I know that they will have to start closing libraries then and perhaps even lay off more people. We need to support our libraries and the services that they provide (most of which are free because you paid for them with your tax dollars). Please consider talking to your county commissioners or donate to the library.

Some cool (slightly older) blog posts

So I am finally going through all of my old emails from the first 3 months of this year and I can across a few really cool blog posts that I thought might interest others:

http://programminglibrarian.org/library/planning/get-in-the-loop.html -This is a post all about programming in libraries and what MLIS students should be aware of, and what they could use in their libraries or while as students for programming projects.

http://theunquietlibrarian.wordpress.com/2009/12/22/my-sweet-sixteen-list-of-things-i-learned-in-librarianship-in-2009/ - a list of sixteen things learned about librarianship in 2009. All 16 are interesting things to ponder about the future of librarianship. They definitely made me think.

Google to investigate 'education searches'

I saw this article in the School Library Journal e-newsletter and wanted to share. Google is exploring the option of creating an 'education search' from its website. Now, the article is very vague about what that type of search would be, however it sounds intriguing.

What would an 'education search' look like? If I was doing any controlling of that type of search I would very start by making sure that all hits to my search were valid and credible websites. That if I did an education search on 'genetics' I did not find a website written by Sally Smith in Grade 4, but rather a website authored by a professor of genetics at a University. I hope Google hires some librarians/educators to work on this project, if it gets out of 'exploration' stage. Because wouldn't they be the best to evaluate how students use the internet to get information?

The Nature Explorium - In a Library!

How cool is this! I just found this news story (originally posted at the Green Libraries Blog). The Middle County Library Foundation is Planning and fundraising for a "Nature Explorium," an interactive outdoor learning environment for children the Middle County Library - Centereach. This will make it the first library to have an outdoor education space as well. The space will have centers with different themes, from a "messy area" to a planting area. As a self-titled environmentalist I love this concept because it highlights another area of education that a public library can offer, makes the space available for new and unique library programs, and highlights the library as an essential part of the community.

My closest public library, the Steele Creek branch of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library, has a Children's Garden outside. Although, I don't think that the children's garden can even come close to the Nature Explorium, I am still glad this public library has it, because it adds a great outdoor space and character to the library.

Hi!

Hello to all! I am a current Masters of Library and Information Science Student at UNC-Greensboro at their distance learning campus in Charlotte, NC. I wanted to start this blog to share and blog about ideas and issues that I think are important for brand new librarians/librarians still in school/other topics that I think could be interesting to the library community.

I welcome comments and critiques of all that I post here. I seek to not only share my thoughts, but also gain wisdom and advice from other new and experience librarians who will hopefully, eventually check out this blog!