Library is studying strategies for balancing its books

When Hennepin County had to cut the human services budget by millions of dollars this year, it barely heard a squeak from the general public. Libraries, however, are a different matter.

Cut hours? Don't even try. Charge for reserving a book? Forget it. Stop buying DVDs of popular movies? Get real!

But change is coming to the Hennepin County Library. The system, which is 18 months into a merger with the Minneapolis Public Library, faces a $3 million to $4 million budget cut next year. That follows reductions this year that sliced the library's annual budget from $73 million to about $70 million.

When the county recently asked for ideas on how to save money and put suggestion boxes in libraries, the ideas came streaming in. Many suggested charging for library services that have always been free.

In an interview last week, Library Director Lois Langer Thompson expressed reservations about adding fees, saying her top goal is to preserve customer service and access. But, she acknowledged, "services will have to change."

"I don't think we will be able to do things exactly as we have done them," she said. "Our strategy is figuring out how to provide excellent library services to all residents of Hennepin County while still being fiscally responsible."

Exactly how the library will do that won't be determined until later this year. While staffing has already been cut -- the equivalent of about 25 full-time positions have been eliminated through attrition, leaving the system with about 700 full-time positions -- the impact of reductions hasn't really been visible to library users.

In fact, with the merger progressing more rapidly than expected, the biggest change library users will see this summer is a combined online catalog of collections in city and suburban libraries. By late August, users in Minneapolis will be able to find and reserve a book online that's in a suburban library and vice versa. Fines, circulation rules and fees are already uniform, tying up what Thompson calls "the last loose ends" of the merger.

A love for the local library

Seven community meetings have been held in libraries to talk about the system's financial challenges. Thompson said the message she picked up was that while people appreciate the county system, "they love their local library and really identify with it."

"There is a real desire to give back and do whatever they can do not to see a decrease in services, whether by volunteering their time or giving money," she said.

While Minneapolis libraries had a "friends" group that supported the entire city system, many suburban libraries have their own support groups that raise funds for individual libraries. Thompson said that practice may be extended to city libraries.

She is not enthusiastic about suggestions to cut hours or close libraries on holidays like Presidents' Day, when she said they fill with kids who are out of school. But one big change that is being explored is the possibility of "floating" the library collection. Now, a book that is borrowed from the Southdale library goes back to that location, no matter where the user returned it to. If the library floated its collection, a book from Southdale that was returned to Minneapolis' Nokomis branch would stay at Nokomis until someone borrowed it.

In the suburban libraries, DVDs are already floated. Extending the concept to books is more complex because some libraries have specialized collections that would lose their focus if material was dispersed.

"Does it save money?" Thompson asked. "What are the cost savings, and are there down sides to it? Do you end up with an unbalanced collection? We have to investigate this."

The system's materials delivery system, which is contracted out and runs five nights a week, is very efficient, Thompson said. She said reducing that service isn't an option because it would just build a backlog of material that needs to be delivered.

What charges might work?

She rejected a suggestion to charge for reserved items that aren't picked up as unworkable and said making people pay to use a computer for more than two hours violates the library's mission of offering free resources. But one popular fee program that has been a longtime success in the suburbs could be expanded to city libraries. "Bestseller express" charges users $3 to rent a best-seller for 10 days rather than reserve it and wait on a list for months. The charge covers costs, Thompson said, but the price hasn't gone up in a long time, and she said officials are considering an increase.

The library may cut an online ask-a-librarian service and join a statewide program that does the same thing. Also under consideration is asking people at check-out if they want a paper receipt reminding them when an item is due. With 16.6 million items loaned each year, paper costs add up fast, Thompson said.

So far, the system's acquisitions budget of $7.5 million has been spared from cuts.

A citizen suggestion to put collection boxes in libraries creates a security issue if money is sitting around on counters, Thompson said, pointing out that friends groups are happy to take a dollar or $1,000 for libraries. She was more enthusiastic about a citizen suggestion to "sell cool library tote bags and T-shirts."

"We're looking at that; we have sold bags in the past," she said. "That is definitely in the works."

Mary Jane Smetanka • 612-673-7380