America's Star Libraries: Pelham, Meekins, and Stockbridge Libraries

Congratulations to the Pelham, Meekins, and Stockbridge Libraries - all recognized by Library Journal as STAR LIBRARIES ~ Read more about it in the November 15 issue of Library Journal

Annual Meeting of the WMRLS Council of Members

From WMRLS Annual Meeting of the Council of Members

Our WMRLS Annual Meeting is always a great oppportunity for people from our member libraries to learn what is happening at the local, regional, state, and national levels. At today's Annual Meeting, Rob Maier, Director of the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners, our featured guest speaker, discussed the FY11 Library Budget Crisis and its negative impact upon the regional library systems (as well as the severe pressure with all state agencies that are required to propose 17% overall reductions).  Commissioner Vicki L. Kaufman, urged all librarians to contact their legislators by phone and/or by writing a letter to advocate for libraries.

Barnes and Noble Fundraiser for Libraries - January 17 and 18, 2010

Barnes and Noble Martin Luther King Day Library Fundraising Event

Locations of participating western Massachusetts Barnes and Noble Stores: Hadley | Holyoke | Pittsfield

LIBRARY RESPONSIBLITIES to participate in January 17 and 18 Martin Luther King Day Barnes and Noble Library Fundraising Event:

• Library must register directly with their Barnes and Noble Community Relations Manager* (CRM) by Tuesday, December 1, 2009.
• Each library that participates in this fundraising event must schedule an event to be held on one of the two days of this fundraiser. Event can be a booktalk, demonstration (Example: how to knit), library program (Examples: storyhour, readers theater, author talk).
• Events will be scheduled on a first-come, first served basis.
• Libraries may "team up" and conduct combined events.
• A representative from each of the library's (staff, Friend of Library, trustee) must man an information table (one table representing all of the participating libraries so that each library needs only to schedule one to two hours of table coverage time). Information tables can only be put up in the event space during an event.
• Prior to the fundraising event, the library contact meets with CRM to prepare a library "wish list" of items that the public can purchase for them. This needs to be done 4-6 weeks prior to the bookfair

BARNES AND NOBLE CRMS' RESPONSIBILITIES For This Event:
• Each library will register directly with their Barnes and Noble CRM
• The CRM will communicate directly with the libraries that are participating in this fundraiser

*Hadley Barnes and Noble Community Relations Manager:
Karen E. Lynn, Store Manager, Barnes and Noble Booksellers
335 Russell Street, Hadley, MA 01035; tel: (413) 584-2558;
fax: (413) 584-8750; crm2088@bn.com

*Holyoke Barnes and Noble Community Relations Manager:
Gail Harris, Barnes and Noble, 7 Holyoke Street, Holyoke, MA 01040; tel: (413) 532-1786; fax: (413) 532-1973; crm2747@bn.com

Pittsfield Barnes and Noble Community Relations Manager:
Melissa Swart, Store Manager, Barnes and Noble Booksellers, 555 Hubbard Avenue, Pittsfield, MA 01201; tel: (413) 496-9051; fax: (413)496-9755 ; crm2661@bn.com

Barnes and Noble Bookfairs: How it Works, Custom Bookfairs, FAQs, and more!

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/bookfairs/

GPL budget meeting time/location changed

The Greenfield Town Council Meeting scheduled for Wednesday, November 18 at 6:30 at the Greenfield Middle School has been changed.

The meeting will now be held at 7:00pm at the GCTV studio at 393 Main Street in Greenfield.

Police and/or Government Requests for Library Records

The “Site Index” on our WMRLS Homepage also aims to serve as a “ready reference” and provides information on frequently asked questions posed by staff or our member libraries. Recently, we have fielded a number of questions about how to best handle police and/or government requests for library records. For this reason, my colleague, Jan Resnick, and I have researched this topic and created a new webpage titled “Police and/or Government Requests for Library Records” (accessible to all via our “Site Index” - http://www.wmrls.org/toc/index.html as well as directly at http://www.wmrls.org/wmrls/police-requests.html )

Greenfield Public Library Mid-Year Budget Cuts

Greenfield Public Library Budget Cuts: How Will this Impact You?

On November 18, there will be a Public Hearing at 5:30pm at the Greenfield Middle School Auditorium so the Council can vote on amending the FY10 budget. The amendment put forward includes a $30,300 cut in the library's budget. Below are documents that will help explain what a cut of this size will mean to the GPL.

• Public Notice of November 18 Meeting
• Fall 2009 GPL Layoffs
• Certification Requirements
• When a MA Library is Not Certified

What will these cuts mean to you and how you use the library?

The Greenfield Public Library has already lost 3 staff members, and 3.5 open hours this year.

With these cuts we are now facing:

• losing 4 more staff people, bringing us to a staff cut of 35% in less than a year
• closing 2 evenings and 1.5 hours on Saturdays
• reducing our magazine holdings by ½
• greatly reducing reference services and online databases subscriptions
• severely reducing or eliminating children and adult programming
• increasing wait time for holds to 2+ weeks
• longer lines at check out and more noise
• not being able to repair or replace any equipment or materials
• 2 more potential rounds of budget cuts; services now being reduced could be eliminated entirely
• the possibility of losing Interlibrary Loan next year if monies taken now are not replaced in next year’s budget.

The Greenfield Public Library is a service organization; when we lose staff, we cannot provide services.

Proposed New Library Hours

Monday	1-5pm
Tuesday	9:30a-8p
Wednesday	9:30a-5p
Thursday	9:30a-5p
Friday	9:30a-5p
Saturday	9:30a-12:30p

~~~ Please attend ~~~
PUBLIC HEARING
November 18, 2009; 5:30pm
Greenfield Middle School Auditorium

MLA "Don't Close the Books on Libraries!" Rally on November 4

Approximately 300 library supporters (including the 46 western and central Massachusetts librarians and supporters who took our Friends of WMRLS and Friends of CMRLS  funded "Bus to Boston") rallied for our libraries at yesterday's MLA Legislative Committee's Don't Close the Books on Libraries protest at the State House in Boston. 

Visit the MLA Website for a listing of media coverage of this important event.

AND

Visit our WMRLS Flickr Website to view photos of this rally taken by our western Massachusetts contingent (we'll be updating this webpage throughout the day).

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