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Calendar
February 6 Library Annual Report Assistance, 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m., NWLS
February 7 Technology Update and Planning Meeting, 10:00 a.m., NWLS
February 8 Library Annual Report Assistance, 1:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m., NWLS
February 9 Library Annual Report Assistance, 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m., NWLS
February 21 Preventing Workplace Violence, 9:00 a.m. - 2:30 p.m., NWLS
March 1 Promoting Rural Libraries/Children's Services Roundtable and Idea Sharing, 10:00 a.m. - 2:30 p.m., NWLS
March 6,7 Children's Book Fest, Rhinelander
March 13 Greener Pastures Rural Library Sustainability Workshop, 9:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m., Rice Lake Public Library (also April 18 in Mercer).
March 17 NWLS Board of Trustees Meeting, 12:00 p.m., NWLS
March 29 LSTA Early Literacy Project: Infant Brain Development, 10:00 a.m. - 2:30 p.m., Iron River
March 30 LSTA Early Literacy Project: Infant Brain Development, 10:00 a.m. - 2:30 p.m., Mellen
April 18 Greener Pastures Rural Library Sustainability Workshop, 9:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m., Mercer, (also March 13 in Rice Lake).
2007 UW-Madison's School of Library and Information Studies (SLIS) Conference and Continuing Education Courses:
- February 7-March 21 Creating Public Library Programming for Adults Online Course.
- February 19-March 18 Business Reference (Online)
- February 19-March 18 Topics in Library Management (Online)
- April 23-26 Libraries: Inspiring Spaces ... Functional Places
Conference, (on-site), UW-Madison
- June 25-29 Public Library Administration (on-site), UW-Madison
- August 13-17 Cataloging (on-site), UW-Madison
- August 20-24 Puppetry in the Library (on-site course), UW-Madison.
For more information, contact Anna Palmer at 608.263.4452 or ahpalmer@wisc.edu. PAGE UP
Current Events
Non-Resident Borrowing and Act 420
From Jim Trojanowski, NWLS Director
In the January 25 edition of Streams, I discussed the history of non-resident borrowing in Wisconsin: how non-resident borrowing came to be mandated by the state, why non-resident usage became a problem for many libraries, and how the library community has attempted to resolve this problem. This week I’ll look more closely at non-resident borrowing.
As I wrote last week, Wisconsin Act 150 requires counties to reimburse libraries for use by non-residents of a community that supports its own public library. The bill calls for reimbursements at 70% of the cost of serving non-residents. The first Act 150 payments were made in 2001 for circulations made in 1999.
For some libraries in Wisconsin, Act 150 successfully resolves the problem of non-resident borrowing. The law requires counties to reimburse only libraries within their borders; however, for libraries with large numbers of borrowers coming from other counties, non-resident reimbursement continues to be a problem.
Within the Northern Waters Library Service area, two examples illustrate the complex nature of cross-border borrowing. These are Bayfield County residents’ use of the Vaughn Library in Ashland and Vilas County residents’ use of Minocqua Public Library. There are many similar examples throughout the NWLS service area and Wisconsin.
Ashland About 30% of Vaughn Library’s circulation is to Bayfield County residents. While Vaughn must open its doors to Bayfield County residents as a requirement for membership in NWLS, there has been no obligation for Bayfield County to reimburse for that usage until passage of Act 420. Had Bayfield County been required to provide payments to the Vaughn Library for circulations made in 2005, the library would have received $57,000 in additional funding.
Minocqua Arbor Vitae residents use the Minocqua Public Library heavily; indeed, only Minocqua and Woodruff residents borrow more from the library than do Arbor Vitae residents. Arbor Vitae is located in Vilas County; Minocqua is in Oneida County. In many ways, the issue of use of the Minocqua library by Vilas County residents is similar to that of Bayfield County residents’ use of the Vaughn Library. There is, however, one significant difference: Minocqua belongs to a different library system than does Vilas County. Because of this, Minocqua may charge Vilas County residents for a library card or, if they chose, refuse them any services at all.
Until passage of Act 420, Minocqua charged Vilas County residents $100 annually for a family library card. While this amount seemed high to many patrons, it actually paid a fraction of the cost of serving them. In 2005, Minocqua generated about $7,300 for serving Vilas County residents by charging for their cards. Had Act 420 been in effect for circulations made in 2005, Minocqua would have received $29,000 from Vilas County for serving Arbor Vitae residents.
Another way to look at non-resident borrowing is to examine how the cost of providing local library service is shared. The table below shows that in 2005, the last year for which data is available, residents of the NWLS service area who live in a community with a public library paid a disproportionate amount of the cost of library service in comparison to those who do not live in a community with a public library. (This data is from the website of the Division for Libraries, Technology, and Community Learning.)
2005 Share of Library Service Costs
NWLS Service Area
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