Library Use Calculator

posted 11/18/2009
This was a hard week for me to come up with a column. The board just approved the 2010 budget last week and I've spent the day finishing formatting it to send to the county. So my head is in our budget, but how fun is a column on that? I actually really enjoy the budget process and it is obviously extremely important, but how to write a 300-word column on it that makes people click to read the full column? Honestly our 2010 budget is very tight, but no one is ready to read one more budget woe story right now. Luckily, I found a way to make talking about our budget fun!

Check out the Library Use Calculator! Simply click this link to the American Library Association, plug in your use numbers, and see the value public libraries provide.

This calculator was created by the Massachusetts Library Association in 2006 and is a great (and fun) way to get a sense in dollar terms how much you would pay out of pocket for the services you get from our library. Of course this calculator has not been customized for our library (yet), but it still gives a pretty good sense of what you are getting.

How is this related to our budget? This calculator gives library users a concrete way to connect to our expenditures and gain a little insight into where money is spent. Besides the collection, money goes to personnel, technology, facility maintenance and improvement, and a few other smaller expenditure groupings. By using the calculator you get a quick snapshot of the types of services we provide and what it costs.

A few highlights from our 2010 budget include:

Tax revenue totals $844,000, and is 97.7% of our revenue
Personnel services and benefits total $563,494, and are 63.41% of total expenditures
Collection expenditures total $105,600, and are 11.88% of total expenditures. This includes print, audio, video, periodicals, and online databases
Technology expenditures total $61,280, and are 6.89% of total expenditures
Facility maintenance and improvements expenditures total $52,000, and are 5.85% of total expenditures

If you have any questions about our budget, please ask!

Laura Tretter
Director
San Juan Island Library
360.378.2798
ltretter@sjlib.org

editor@sanjuanislander.com

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