Statement before the Glenn A. Walsh
Board of
Directors,
Allegheny Regional
Asset District: Telephone: 412-561-7876
ACLA Distribution Electronic
Mail: < gawalsh@andrewcarnegie.cc
>
Formula to Libraries Internet Web
Site: < http://www.andrewcarnegie.cc
>
2006 May 30
Good afternoon. I am Glenn A.
Walsh of
As the attached web site page
indicates, on page 2 of the attachment, the Andrew Carnegie Free Library’s
collection size was 35,772 cataloged items in 2001, but was 22,335 in 2005. Discussing
this with Library staff and a Library Board member, I have learned that the
collection size is now 18,000, may be
further reduced, and this gutting of
the Library’s collection is specifically
due to the ACLA formula. Due to the
formula’s “Collection Turnover Rate” criterion, libraries with large collection
sizes are financially penalized if
that library does not have a correspondingly high circulation rate.
Although we finally convinced
Carnegie Borough officials to significantly increase Library funding in the
late 1990s, subsidy increases are very unlikely in the foreseeable future. The
Borough was devastated by the Hurricane Ivan flooding. Several buildings in the
business district have had to be demolished. The town’s anchor retail business,
Izzy Miller Furniture, is closing. Carnegie is losing their tax base. So, to
just keep the doors open to the Andrew Carnegie Free Library, the Library Board
is doing what it can to maximize RAD funding from ACLA. And, this has meant the
discarding of nearly half of the Library’s books !!!
Anecdotally, I also
understand that some libraries are buying more popular fiction, to boost their
circulation and hence their RAD funding, while their book budget for
non-fiction titles is lagging.
The formula used by ACLA to
distribute RAD funds to County libraries is overly complex and seeks to
Is this the intention of the
Allegheny Regional Asset District? Is this how RAD intends to improve library
service to County residents?
If officials of any local
library wished to complain to you about this micromanagement, they dare not because
of a gag-order in their Federated Library System membership agreement*. If they
do anything that could be construed
by ACLA as jeopardizing funding to ACLA, their Federated Library System
membership could be terminated. Although this would not deny them RAD funds, it
could deny them ACLA services and State funds funneled through ACLA.
The State Department of
Education provides reasonable standards for public libraries, without trying to
micromanage each library. This micromanagement of County libraries, through the
ACLA formula, must end, and particularly the Turnover Rate criterion, which is damaging
library service in
Thank you.
* Special Note: The previous was the prepared text. Following the sentence: "If officials of any local library wished to complain to you about this micromanagement, they dare not because of a gag-order in their Federated Library System membership agreement." the following was added during the verbal testimony: "--except one brave library." This addition referred to Verne Koch, a member of the Board of Directors of the Community Center and Library Association (which operates the Lauri Ann West Memorial Library in O'Hara Township), who testified a few minutes earlier before the Board of Directors of the Allegheny Regional Asset District, regarding the unfairness of the ACLA formula.
gaw