Budget cuts at local library may halt MeLCat service, other key programs
Library falls victim to Michigan's $2.3 billion budget shortfall
Marieke van der Vaart
Issue date: 10/22/09 Section: News
|
Michigan lawmakers are considering cutting education and library monies to address the $2.3 billion budget shortfall. For local libraries that means losing key programs, being forced out of the state cooperatives and potentially cutting hours, Corey Grimminck, director of the library, said.
Grimminck said Hillsdale Community Library will almost certainly lose access to the state-cooperative-run MeLCat inter-library loan system.
"If they don't keep the level of funding at what it is, it's pretty much guaranteed that MeLCat and the MeLCat databases will be gone," Grimminck said. "It's very likely that a lot of the cooperatives of the state will dissolve."
Library cooperatives allow rural libraries access to books and resources they couldn't afford on their own, Grimminck said. It also opens up continuing education seminar for librarians. Hillsdale county libraries belong to the Woodlands Library Cooperative, a group comprising14 member counties.
A bundle of MeLCat items sit on the library's counter, pink slips identifying their participation in the program. Grimminck estimates that patrons check out some 250 items through MeLCat every month. And she said she expects that number to rise as patrons grow increasingly comfortable with the state-wide library program.
"We only joined MeLCat a year and a half ago and now that people are just getting in the swing of it, we are in danger of losing that ability," she said.
Less used, the database program includes full-text news services, test-prep programs for elementary through high school students, auto repair manuals, and genealogy databases, Grimminck said.
"It's somewhat devastating to think of losing all that," she said. "It hasn't really sunk in."
Be the first to comment on this story