Annual Meeting of the Council Of Members - Tuesday, November 17

Dear Members of the Western MA Regional Library System (WMRLS):

The 2009 Annual Meeting will be one of the most important in the almost-50 year history of WMRLS. It will take place at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 17, at the Agawam Public Library. Details, directions and an online registration form are at http://www.wmrls.org/council/ . There you will also find links to documents (agenda, nominating slate, minutes, FY11 budget and plan of service) that will be reviewed and presented for approval. If you’d like, please print them to review them and bring them with you to the meeting.

The Regions just sustained State budget cuts yesterday. Their exact impact is yet to be determined. The budget for next year (FY11) is initially forecast to be reduced by at least 28%. All this news has already forced us to end our beloved bookmobile service at the end of December 2009. There is talk about consolidation of Regions, with the final number of Regions not yet determined. Many of you have expressed your concerns, and have questions about the future of WMRLS and its services.

After required business is transacted, considerable time has been set aside for Rob Maier, Director of the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners, to offer us an update on the State budget situation for libraries. He will also talk about the process underway to forge future directions for Regions and their services. There will be ample opportunity for people to ask questions so they can better understand what might lie ahead for all of us.

We hope to have a great turnout for this important Annual Meeting!

Thank you,

John Ramsay
Regional Administrator, WMRLS

Governor Announces Budget Cuts To FY2010 State Budget

The following message was posted to the allregions email list at 1:38 pm today:

The Governor outlined today at a press conference in Worcester his list of 9C spending cuts to the FY2010 state budget. These are emergency cuts to the FY2010 state budget due to a projected $600 million revenue shortfall in the first quarter of the fiscal year. The Governor is required by law to reduce the state budget if revenues are not sufficient to the fund the state budget for FY2010. The Governor did not reduce funding in line item 7000-9506 ( Technology and Automated Resource-Sharing, line item 7000-9101( MBLC Administrative account), or in line items 7000-9402(Worcester Talking Book Library) or 7000-9406 (Perkins Talking Book Library).

However, the Governor has reduced funding for line item 7000-9401 (State Aid To Regional Libraries) by $514,000 in FY2010. The Governor has also reduced funding by $284,000 for line item 7000-9501 for State Aid To Public Libraries in FY2010.

Maureen Killoran, Head of the
Library Advisory and Development Unit
Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners
98 North Washington St., Suite 401
Boston, Mass. 02114
Tel: 617-725-1860 ext.220
1-800-952-7403 ext.220
email: maureen.killoran@state.ma.us

November is Family Literacy Month

Our WMRLS FAMILY LITERACY MONTH Online Reading Program is Ready to Share!

One of the exciting new features of ReadsinMA Online Reading Program is the Import/Export Feature.  Now one librarian can create a specialized online reading program and share the code with all participating libraries.  Creating a program can sometimes take hours upon hours but importing a program takes less than a minute!

Complete information on our ReadsinMA program is posted on our ReadsinMA Librarian Information & Sharing Blog

This grant funded software program is available free-of-charge to every public library in the commonwealth (and to 6 school libraries in each region).  For additional information on this program, contact Janet Eckert, WMRLS. 

www.ReadsinMA.org is supported by your local library, the Massachusetts Regional Library Systems, and the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners, with funding from the Institute of Museums and Library Services, an independent federal agency that grows and sustains a Nation of Learners because lifelong learning is critical to success.

BOOKMOBILE service to end December 30, 2009

The following message was posted to the WMRLS Email Discussion List on Friday, October 23,2009

Dear Colleagues,

I am sad to let you know that the WMRLS Executive Board has approved a proposal to permanently take the bookmobile off the road at the end of December 2009. The actual proposal, which was developed after much discussion among WMRLS staff members, is attached to this email.

A variety of things make this step necessary---a decade of budget problems, a more recent lack of both drivers to take the bookmobile out and also technical services staff to promptly acquire and process a collection, and most recently the very real threat of a huge budget cut for next year with possible mergers of regional library systems. In addition, the growing number of small libraries joining C/WMARS and MassCat networks has required that the regional library put increasing resources into the WMRLS Delivery Service, and that is a trend that is not expected to slow down.

Any library that has a scheduled bookmobile visit during October, November and December will see the bookmobile as scheduled. It is your decision whether you borrow from the bookmobile as usual or only return materials. We will be working with our “bookmobile libraries” to facilitate the return of the collections they have from WMRLS now. We also will continue to fill deposit requests for materials that we will send out by delivery. You can find the deposit request form online at http://www.wmrls.org/services/additional/suppleme.html

The bookmobile program began before the regional library system did, back in the days of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Works Projects Administration in the 1940’s. WMRLS has continued this old-fashioned and beloved tradition as a needed and vital service to the smallest of western Massachusetts’ communities. We have found it challenging to continue the program as it was in its most proud days, so it is with feelings of great sadness that we see it to a graceful end.

Sincerely, Mary King, Regional Librarian, WMRLS

FY2011 Budget and Regional Services

The message below was posted to the "All Regions" email discussion list on Tuesday, October 27, 2009:

To: All Regions

The Board of Library Commissioners received 250 comments on the proposed FY2011 budget. Thank you to those who took time to share your thoughts and ideas with us. Many of your comments are reflected in this update.

Over the last few weeks I have met with the staffs and executive boards of the Western, Central, Northeast, Metrowest and Southeastern regional library systems to brief them on the overall state budget issues that have led to the proposed 28% reduction in regional budgets for FY2011, and to discuss how we move forward together to plan for regional services needed by libraries and residents under these very constrained fiscal circumstances. I will attend each of the regional annual meetings in November to provide an update and to answer questions as time permits.

For now it is important that we focus our energy on assessing and prioritizing regional services. To this end, the regional administrators have contracted with Linda Braun to facilitate two discussions. First, all regional staff will gather to identify and prioritize regional services from their point of view as providers. Second, all regional executive board members will gather to prioritize services from the point of view of regional members. This work will be completed in December. From January through March we will work from the service priorities to design the best possible regional structure to provide the most complete set of services possible. From April through June we will work out the legal and fiscal details of the new structure. And as early as possible in FY2011 a transition to the new structure will take place.

Several issues have been raised in comments submitted to the Board of Library Commissioners in October and in the meetings with regional staff and executive boards that I would like to share with you.

First, beyond the major regional services (delivery, database licensing, continuing education and training, and many more) it is eminently clear that libraries of all types appreciate and want to preserve the relationship between their staff and regional staff. The single greatest challenge in restructuring the regions is to design a system that sustains this relationship. I am hopeful that this can be done.

Second, current regional staff should be retained. However, the reality is that there will simply not be positions for all current staff given the constrained budget.

Third, the restructured regions should continue to be multi-type and not revert to public library only regions.

Fourth, restructuring should be viewed as merging of existing regions and not as dissolution of regions. Merging means preserving the strengths of our regional system; dissolution suggests starting over.

Finally, it is of utmost importance that the current regional systems drive this process so that it ultimately results in a restructured regional program that reflects the needs of all member libraries. In short this restructuring will be best if it is a ground up not top down process.

END
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert C. Maier, Director
Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners
98 North Washington Street, Suite 401
Boston, MA 02114
Ph (617) 725-1860 x249