Making the Best of a Shrinking Budget: Creative Practices in a New Economy

Broadcast date: Friday, January 29, 2010

Noon to 1:30 p.m. Eastern Time

Presenters: Leslie Burger, Alice Calabrese-Berry and Mary Case

Costs rise while budgets and our buying power shrink. And if we want to innovate, the incorporation of new formats and technologies taxes our budgets even further. Librarians, traditionally used to budgets with modest or no growth, now face steep cuts.

In the face of insufficient funding, libraries reduce hours, cut subscriptions, step up their resource sharing efforts, engage in consortial buys, outsource where possible, use staff more creatively, deal more aggressively with vendors, boost fundraising efforts, mount advocacy campaigns, seek open source solutions, seek input from focus groups to prioritize services, and even merge with other libraries. . .

Join Leslie Burger, Director of the Princeton (NJ) Public Library and founder of Library Development Solutions, Alice Calabrese-Berry, Executive Director of Metropolitan (Chicago) Library System and Mary Case, Director of Libraries at the University of Illinois at Chicago for a discussion of best ways to deal with these difficult budget trends. What principles should guide librarians in saving money? How can we sustain our core services? Our panelists will share their knowledge and experience and explore creative library practices in this new economy.