Facing a $600,000 shortfall, the Des Plaines Illinois library could close in early December if it doesn’t get the money needed to tide it over until the end of the year.
The library board has asked the city council for up to a $1.5 million loan, which has yet to be voted on. The library is waiting for nearly $3 million from Cook County tax receipts.
“They have to come in front of the city council and justify why they want this loan . . . [and] justify to the city council that they are making the necessary cuts so they won’t have to come to us for loans in the future,” Mayor Marty Moylan said.
He said the library needs to return to its core mission of making “basic reading material available.” Moylan said he has heard comments in the community that the library shouldn’t, for example, be in the business of loaning out CDs and movies for free.
Dumb mayor.
Chicago Sun Times reports.
Dumb…
well, he may be dumb, but several area libraries are charging a nominal fee for DVDs nowadays. We have to look at all possibilities when we need to close budget gaps.
dumb
OK, I’ll (might) go along with that, but what I meant was they shouldn’t be limiting offerings. Not really sure if he’s dumb or not, just didn’t like what he said.
although
Not spending the money atall is one way to save money though.
Just because people want something doesn’t mean it should be provided, especially if the money isn’t there.
Could quite easily say that they should only offer books fullstop. Better to have just books or nothing atall?
library
at least charge for internet people can pay if they want to play games on the computer and even any other reference items
If the library expected
If the library expected $3mil in revenue and didn’t get it from Cook County, it isn’t fiscal irresponsibility on the library’s part. How can they be expected to justify another agency’s actions? Isn’t it obvious to the city council that the County is responsible for the shortfall?
Endeavor
Endeavor (now part of Ex Libris) is/was headquartered there, which makes it doubly a shame.