News Report # 2

"DC Public Library Budget Is Cut 11 Percent
Sunday branch hours eliminated"
Lynn Blumenstein -- Library Journal, 9/21/2009
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6698002.html

The District of Columbia’s public library is taking quite a drastic budget cut. Along with these budget cuts there will also be a shortage of hours when the Library is actually open. After October, the Library will no longer be open on Sunday’s. This is a dilemma because many frequent visitors and users of the Library tend to find Sunday one of the most convenient and leisure days that they have. Cutting this day out of the Libraries schedule may cause conflict within the institution. On one side, it’s easy because the employees do not mind having there Sundays off; however, as was said before it’s a large inconvenience to library frequenters. They plan on using volunteers to help fill gaps that will occur from the budget cut. The District of Columbia Library’s book mobile will also not be under use any longer. With a total of 11% budget costs, the Library will have many aspects that they must attend to in order to make the budget cut work.

I believe that this is most likely just one of many other stories that are like it. Library’s budgets seem to be decreasing almost everywhere you go, while the price for entities such as scholarly journals is rising ever more. This is a dilemma which will have to be faced eventually. It’s impossible for Library’s to continue providing the same services and amount of information while they have less money and the resources that they need are growing ever more in value. This rough period will have to be ridden out by Library’s around the globe in hope for a time where more money is available.