Birdie posted on Friday after the end of banker’s hours on the eastern coast of the United States that Free Library of Philadelphia is preparing to close. The library itself notes that these preparations are due to the lack of state budget being passed. Reuters reports that a tentative budget deal has been reached but the budget is over two months late this fiscal year. It appears that Philly Free is not engaging in a marketing ploy but may quite honestly be about to run out of cash to pay staff and keep the utilities on as they’ve had to seemingly rely on a year-to-year carry over funds balance to run their institution.
While this should be an isolated incident, it is not. A local library near the LISTen eastern operating site, Harbor-Topky Memorial Library, is getting set to go to the polls in November to fight for its existence. The library is now only open four days per week, lost four employees, and has no guarantee that funding from Ohio state-level authorities will ever increase. Unfortunately the story by Stefanie Wessell on this is not available online but my copy of The Gazette — Ashtabula/Geneva Edition is at hand to work from.
The library is seeking a 5-year, 2 mill operating levy in November. Such local funds may be quite necessary as the state’s budget was balanced based on the assumption of revenue coming from yet to be installed video slot machines at Ohio’s seven race tracks. The New York Times notes that gaming revenue is declining while WKSU notes none of those race tracks has even applied for a slots license yet. The biennial budget deal may wind up having to be revisited if this third of the budget’s assumed revenue disappears. An editorial by The (Dover-New Philadelphia) Times-Reporter relayed by the Lancaster Eagle-Gazette explains how large the stakes are in Ohio if this goes awry.
These are merely two cases. There are likely others out there. Are your local libraries being impacted by today’s omnipresent economic psychosis? Do you need to practice talking to a radio host prior to going live on local radio stations to advocate for your library? Contact the podcast team and let us know as we may be able to help. Clicking the Google Voice button below is likely the easiest way to reach us at the moment:
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