Rural Libraries Deal With Huge User Increase
So Amelia Cerling, News Anchor and Reporter from WEAU 13 News, called me yesterday morning and asked if I would be willing to do an interview about how public libraries are dealing with higher usage and shrinking budgets. Her first stop would be the Bloomer Public Library and then she would hop on over to little Colfax to speak with me. I basically had one hours to pull my thoughts together on what I would say about our economic situation concerning increasing library usage and our operating budget.
I'm guessing about 15 minutes of video footage was shoot during my interview in the morning, but I think they only took about 15 seconds of my actual interview and aired that on TV.
I was very excited that WEAU finally decided to call upon the "small" public libraries in the area. So many times the larger city libraries are featured, and the small rural libraries become forgotten. Yes, our budgets are small, but we still have the same impact in our communities like larger public libraries. We are all feeling the pinch.
By the way, in 2009 our Internet usage rose 88% and for 2010, it rose another 29 %......I think that speaks for itself! It's not hard to understand the economic impact here. When the economy hurts, public libraries see their patron usage rise. I sure hope our Wisconsin Legislators will understand how important public libraries are in their communities.
Click here to see the WEAU video clip and article from yesterday's news report.
