The Jackson Sun (Jackson,TN) is reporting companies wishing to manage the Jackson-Madison County Library have to make their pitch for taking over library operations at a savings while offering expanded services.
Last week, the Library Board voted unanimously to bid out management in hopes of offering additional services within the bounds of an ever-tightening budget (currently about $935,000), board chairman Gary Kerr said.
Library Director Thomas Aud said the 28 full- and part-time staff “are naturally concerned and are watching this closely.” He also said that current library management can “bid on the process – in effect, we can bid on keeping our own jobs.” He made the comments while explaining the highlights of the proposal during a recent Madison County Commission meeting. The library is jointly funded by the city and county.
Open season.
I’m just waiting for the big outcry when Dubai Library Services LLC puts in the winning bid.
What savings?
Savings will be made by cutting staff and/or services. There is no other way. The CEO will receive a huge salary while the rest of the staff have to take a paycut. This is not good!!!
Re:What savings?
Actually while that’s partly true, added to that is the fact that what some of these private contractors are doing (if I’m reading it right) is setting up are consortiums similar to what we have here in Massachusetts. Once they’ve contracted a number of libraries they are able to offer increased service by pooling the resources of the libraries through interlibrary loan and (I’m guessing) the library budgets for big ticket items like online databases.
Libraries in financial binds should be watching what these companies are doing and emulate in order to stave off being contracted out themselves.