The Federal Budget and Your Library

There have been a few things happening on a governmental level that affect the funding of the Portland District Library.  Because it's sometimes difficult to translate what's being said in bills and budgets, I figured I'd write a couple posts to explain the two items that will impact us the most.

Today I'll focus on the President's budget blueprint, which was released last week amid much fanfare.  I'm sure you've heard a lot about the National Endowment for the Arts, PBS, and other agencies and programs that are potentially on the chopping block.  One agency that tends to get lost in the shuffle is the Institute of Museum and Library Services, or IMLS as we library folk tend to call it.  As USA Today reports, the IMLS provides $231 million to the nation's 123,000 libraries and 35,000 museums.  They distribute this money to the state libraries, which in turn use it to fund programs and services that benefit local public libraries throughout the state.  Great.  That all makes sense, but what does this mean to you?

Well, the lion's share of the IMLS money received by the Library of Michigan goes to the Michigan eLibrary (or MeL), a virtual library available anytime, anywhere to all Michigan residents. As you can probably tell by the name, the Michigan eLibrary includes MeLCat, and the MeL databases.  In other words, the mechanism by which you can have books and movies that we don't own in Portland sent from more than 400 libraries across the state will disappear if the IMLS is eliminated.  So far this year, our patrons have borrowed an average of 261 items per month from other libraries, so we are getting a lot of use from this service.  Hopefully our representatives in Congress will understand how important ILMS funding is to the people of Portland and will fight its elimination.