Bad News

Unfortunately, I must report that the news on the City’s budget continues to be dire. Due to the economic downturn, the City has had to find ways to cut over five million dollars from its budget this year. Further complicating our budget dilemma have been the budget take-aways by the State which have been in the millions of dollars. Our sales tax revenue is down 26% and property tax is down 10%, even before the values reset. Today, Livermore has 53 fewer employees than it did a year ago due to service cut-backs, attrition, lay-offs and other cost-cutting measures. Revenue declines continue from the lingering housing crisis and losses in sales tax revenue. Ongoing discussions with the City’s bargaining units have not been as fruitful as hoped. As a result, each City department was asked to propose an additional 5% in expenditure cuts.

Sadly, for the Library, the latest round of cuts has reduced the Springtown Branch Library hours to one day a week effective November 1, 2010. This reduction has resulted in the layoff of 2FTE employees. The Springtown Branch Library is now open Tuesdays, from noon until 8 PM. The Springtown Library will specialize in express services which include popular, heavily borrowed current materials such as new books, DVD’s and audio books. On the night that the City Council voted to close the Springtown library, they also voted to cut over half a million dollars each from both the police and fire departments.

The Civic Center Library remains open, seven days a week, evenings and weekends and has all of the programs and services enjoyed at Springtown plus many, many more. We sincerely hope Springtown patrons will continue to use the Livermore Library, even if only one day per week. We apologize for any difficulty they may experience in getting to the library on that day; however, library services continue to be available.

Library staff continues to be committed to offering the best possible resources and services with our limited staffing at our two other library sites. We have upgraded our self check out software and very much appreciate the willingness of our patrons to help us by checking out their own materials. We continue to expect that the community will use the library and its wealth of resources and will bear with us as we cope in these difficult times .

The Friends of the Library continue to help us fill some of the gaps in our budget by providing money for many of our programs. They generously fund our Authors and Arts programs and our upcoming Livermore Reads Together program. Several generous donations contributed to another successful Summer Reading Program. The donations of library materials that come to the Library and the Friends have helped to supplement our limited materials budget.

Our volunteer opportunities continue to grow. If anyone would like to volunteer, please contact Librarian Blanche Angelo at 925-373-5500 Ext. 5574. Your help is very much appreciated.

Livermore Reads Together

In February 2011, residents of Livermore will again be encouraged to read the same book. This year that book is 1906 by James Dalessandro. This novel centers on the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire.

Supported by a generous contribution from the Friends of the Livermore Library, the month long celebration will be kicked off on Sunday, January 23, 2011 at 2 PM with a presentation by the author, James Dalessandro. A reception will follow featuring famous San Francisco food treats and turn of the century music by Greg Pane.

During the month the earthquake theme will represented with a variety of exciting programs and displays. The Civic Center Art Gallery will include replicas of newspaper headlines from the time along with photographs and music of the time.

Confirmed programs include :

Jack London: Eyewitness to the Great Quake performance by Live Oakes Educational theater
James Smith speaking on Lost Landmarks of San Francisco
Frisky Frolics/Tin Pan Alley Troubadours
Disaster Preparedness presentation
Dramatic reading from the book
Silent films of the earthquake
US Geological Survey presentation on earthquakes
Vine Cinema showing of the movie "San Francisco"
Livermore at the time of the earthquake presentation

Additional exciting programs are in the planning stages. All of the events will be listed on the library website www.livermore.lib.ca.us and in brochures available at all libraries.

Local book discussion groups are encouraged to select 1906 as their book choice for February. Book club kits, available for check out, include copies of the book, discussion questions and tips for leading book discussions.

Library Snapshot Day

In conjunction with a national event, libraries across California participated in Snapshot: One Day in the Life of California Libraries on Monday, October 4. All three Livermore libraries collected information, comments and photographs from events in this typical library day.Patrons were asked to complete a form telling us why the library is important to them, why they visited the library on this day and any other feedback they wish to give us. The purpose of the day was to promote libraries and provide indisputable proof that libraries consistently provide invaluable services to our community.

The results of One Day in the Life of the Livermore Public Library showed we had 56,488 card holders. Attendance on that day numbered 1,420 visitors and 3,269 items were borrowed. Staff answered 205 reference questions in person and 42 via phone, e-mail or text messaging. Over 600 library patrons used our computers. There were 2 children’s storytimes with an attendance of 117. Eighteen people received literacy tutoring and eleven students received help in the Homework Help Center at the Rincon Branch Library.

Comments included “ It’s a place of quiet peace, a place to contemplate and dream, a place to explore new worlds and people”; “ The library is a tremendous community resource”; The library is my get away place!”; “Knowledge is power…” ; “Very friendly people and clean environment”. Someone even wrote a poem about the library!

The Livermore Public Library continues to be a valuable and well loved community asset.

SUMMER READING FOR EVERYONE @ THE LIBRARY

In these days of tight money, the Livermore Public Library continues to be one of the best summer bargains around. Whether you are doing a staycation or just looking for summer fun, the Summer Reading Program has something for everyone.

The theme of this year’s Summer Reading Game for children is Make a Splash @ Your Library. As in the past, the game is designed for independent readers who read and report on books for prizes. However, the game itself has be revamped to keep up with the changing conditions at the library. Prizes this year are book charms, swimming or bowling coupons and a medal and City Council presentation for those who read 100 books over the summer. The game begins on June 11 and finishes on August 14.

Kids can attend several performance, storytime or craft programs at all facilities. This year the performance programs have again been generously underwritten by the Friends of the Livermore Library. Performers include magicians, jugglers, music, circus performers, wild animals, drummers, and glow-in-the-dark puppets!

Read To Me
Younger pre-readers, including babies, can enroll in Ducky’s Game. In Ducky’s Game, parents and their children complete reading and other fun activities and receive points and stickers along the way. Those who complete the game board win a special prize!

Teen Summer Reading
Teens this summer are invited to participate in the Teen Reading Program . Teens can win prizes by reading books and writing a short review on their game card. If they complete their game card by reading and reviewing six (6) books, they will win a “Make Waves @ Your Library” t-shirt!

Adult Summer Reading
In addition to Summer Reading programs for children and teens, this year the Library will hold its second annual Summer Reading program for adults – Water Your Mind - Read! Although families are encouraged to read together, an adult does not have to have a child in the summer reading program to join. In this program, adults read books, write short reviews on their entry form, and turn it in for a prize and to be entered in a drawing for one of the grand prizes, a “Book and Garden Lover’s Basket.”

Teen ‘Zine
The next edition of, Fusion, the Livermore Public Library “teen zine,” is available, providing a creative outlet for teen artists and authors of various ethnicities to share their talents and their unique perspectives on the world. This edition is again funded by a $2500 from the Rotarian Foundation of Livermore and a donation of $1500 from the Friends. Created by teens for teens, Fusion combines the artistic talents of Livermore teen artists, poets, and writers into a free table top publication throughout the community.Check it out at http://www.livermore.lib.ca.us/screens/Fusion2.pdf.

Budget Situation

Unfortunately, the news on the City’s budget continues to be bleak. The City has just completed preparations for the next two year budget, 2010 to 2012. Revenue declines continue from the lingering housing crisis and losses in sales tax revenue. Despite the best efforts of all of the City departments, a $6M gap exists between expenses and revenues for the 2010-2011 fiscal year and a $7.5M gap for the 2011-2012 fiscal year. Previous departmental budgets are financially unsustainable, so the City cannot continue to provide City services at present levels. Ongoing discussions have identified across the board service reductions to address the City’s on-going structural deficit. Each City department was asked to reduce expenditures by an additional 10%. Unfortunately, some of these reductions will result in additional layoffs.

For the library, this will mean the elimination of a vacant Librarian position and the reorganization of our Technical Services Department with the reduction of a Library Assistant and two part-time Library Clerks. Due to seniority in the organization, several staff will be relocating to the public service areas. We will also be relying more heavily on self service for our patrons as there will be less staff available for assistance, particularly at the Civic Center Library. We are not alone as all other departments in the City are experiencing cuts as well including Police. We can only hope that things will get better over time.

On a positive note, the library faired very well in the community budget workshops. The top three city services as ranked by attendees were public safety, library and economic development. When asked to reduce, maintain or increase funding for city services, the library branches received the highest votes for increased funding from the community budget workshop attendees. Therefore, when budget cuts were to be made, it was felt that the branches had already suffered enough and were not to be cut further. Cuts in hours for the Civic Center Library were considered but it was felt that the facility should remain open for use but with less staffing. Therefore, the Civic Center library will continue to offer 63 hours of service, seven days a week, evenings and weekends. However, there will most likely be longer waits for service and a greater emphasis on the use of the self check machines.

Library staff continues to be committed to offering the best possible resources and services with limited staffing. I continue to expect that the community will use the library and its wealth of resources and bear with us as we cope in these difficult times.

The Friends of the Library are helping to fill some gaps in our budget by providing money for many of our programs. The Friends are supporting our Paws to Read program and the Free2 Succeed Job Center. The Friends have helped support our limited materials acquisitions by funding the popular ReferenceUSA database.

Our volunteer opportunities continue to grow. If anyone would like to volunteer, please contact Librarian Blanche Angelo at 925-373-5500 Ext. 5574. Your help is very much appreciated.

Difficult Times

As many of you know by now, the Library and the City have been hit by the recent economic downturn. The bottom line for the General Fund of the City, which funds library services, is that the revenues do not match the current budgeted expenditures. The Library, along with all other City departments has made cuts to meet this shortfall. The following cuts have been made to the library’s current budget and to the budget for the next 2 year budget cycle:

An additional $50,000 cut to cuts already made in funds for temporary, hourly workers. This area of the budget will now be down to the amount of money needed for the remainder of the year to fund library pages, delivery drivers and IT assistants who help the public with our computers. There will be a little bit of money available for fill behind for absences but very little. In the next 2 year budget this will also be a cut, however, staff will do a better job of spreading the needs for fill behind throughout the year and there will be more money available for this than right now. The impact of this budget cut will be longer waits for service systemwide, fewer staff on desks and possible limited time devoted to programming.

An $80,000 cut in the $ 362,000 library materials budget spread over all three library sites and in all library materials. This will reduce our materials budget to $282,000 which is 6% of total budget and $3.34 per capita. The recommended portion of a library budget for library materials is 10% to 12%. This is lower than many of the Bay Area libraries of our size. This cut will result in fewer library materials, longer waits for new and popular materials as a result of fewer copies, less depth of collection and the possible discontinuation of electronic databases.

The most difficult cut and the one with the greatest impact is the reduction of the open hours of the library’s two branches. The hours of operation for each of the branch libraries will be from 53 hours per week to 23 hours per week. Each site will be open three days per week and closed mornings of their one evening open. A single compliment of staff alternates between sites. The current Rincon staff is operating both branches. The Springtown staff has moved to the Civic Center Library and there have been layoffs as a result of this cut in funding. The new branch hours are posted elsewhere on thei site. Staff intends to continue to try to deliver as many any of our popular and important programs currently offered at the branches such as the Homework Hangout, Lawyers in the Library, Family Storytime. However, with reduced hours the days of these programs have changed as well as the amount of times the programs are offered.

I have spent over 24 years getting our library where it is today. I am not pleased about these changes which are taking us backward. However, we had no choice as there is just not enough money to continue to provide services at the levels we have previously enjoyed. For the moment there are no hour changes proposed at the Civic Center. We are not alone as all other departments in the City are experiencing cuts as well including Police. We can only hope that things will get better over time.

We are increasing our volunteer opportunities and many in the community have stepped forward to help us put on programs such as Paws to Read, the Homework Center at the Rincon Branch and as craft assistants for children’s programs. Assistance in the maintenance of the library by volunteering as shelf stewards has helped us keep the libraries organized and looking great. If anyone would like to volunteer, please contact Librarian Blanche Angelo at 925-373-5500 Ext. 5574. Your help is very much appreciated.

WELLS FARGO GRANTS $5000 TO FREE2 SUCCEED JOB CENTER

There are some positive things happening for the library. Wells Fargo Bank has given us a $5,000 grant to support the Free2 Succeed Job Center at the Civic Center Library. Representatives from Wells Fargo presented the check to members of the Library Board in front of the Civic Center Library at 10:30 am on Friday, December 18.
The Free2 Succeed Job Center offers one on one career counseling sessions. Sessions are averaging 50 per month with a waiting list for scheduling of 35 to 40 people. These private, free sessions offer career planning advice, techniques for successful interviewing and skills for online job applications as well as resume suggestions and critiques with general career and job counseling thrown in.

LIVERMORE READS TOGETHER
The Annual Livermore Reads Together campaign is happening again in February this year. The chosen book is John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley In Search of America. Supported by a generous contribution from the Friends, the month long celebration has been kicked off with a presentation by Tom Steinbeck, John Steinbeck’s son on Sunday, January 24 at 2 pm at the Civic Center Library. This exciting event featured a display of a 1950’s travel trailer and entertainment by Extended Roots.

During the month a Steinbeck photographic exhibit will be on display in the Civic Center Art Gallery. Other events include TV host Doug McConnell, movie night with the feature film Grapes of Wrath at the Vine Theater, programs highlighting dogs, road trips, Steinbeck and much, much more. All of the events are listed on this library website www.livermore.lib.ca.us and in brochures available at all libraries.
We hope everyone will read this exciting book and take part in all the wonderful programs being presented in conjunction with Livermore Reads Together.