Bare Bones and Books

It's a year of budget casualties - some city departments are finding their funding slashed by up to 6% - but the library system has so far escaped being hit very hard. With a proposed budget of $10.6 million (up about $100,000 from 1994-95), director Brenda Branch says that there's just no place to cut. "The truth of the situation is the library budget is pretty bare bones," she says. There are really only two places to cut: the book budget and staff. At $1 million, the book budget is already about half what it should be for a city the size of Austin, Branch says. She emphasizes this by pointing to a chart illustrating that comparable "benchmark" facilities in Cleveland, Denver, and Seattle spend between $4 and $12 on materials for every $2 laid out in Austin. And as far as staff goes, the agency is losing one crucial position - its Community Services manager, who deals with public and internal communications, develops the department's signs, brochures, and printed material, and acts as a liaison between the various library boards and the department. "But when you eliminate staff, you lose services, and vice versa, when you eliminate services, you lose staff," Branch says. So with the exception of the Community Services Manager, "the City Manager [Jesus Garza] made a deliberate decision not to cut our staff and book budgets."

A few programs are taking hits, though most services will still remain intact:

* The library's VICTORY homework tutoring program for low-income and disadvantaged children is being combined with other city programs targeted at the same population, which will then be administered by the health department.

* The department's "micrographics" program, which put documents on microfilm, is also being discontinued as its biggest client - Brackenridge Hospital - is being leased to a private group and will no longer need to use the library's resources.

* Also, the library is closing its $62,000 Job Information Center at the Riverside Branch, in anticipation of $475,000 in federal money for a similar program to be run out of the old Anderson High School in East Austin. The library's job center provided résumé help and job counselors in an effort to teach people how to look for jobs on their own, Branch says, and the new federal program is expected to fulfill the same function.

All this, along with projected energy savings from renovations at the John Henry Faulk Central Library (which has been closed for structural and design improvements since July 24 and will stay closed until January, 1996), and some miscellaneous savings, fee increases, and personnel transfers, will save the library $380,000 over the current budget. Those savings, however, will be eaten up by increases in insurance and lease costs, along with a new Oak Hill branch set to open next July. Add in a few other items, and there remains a $100,000 increase over this year's budget.

"I'm really very satisfied with the budget, and I'm hesitant to put out a wish list," Branch says. "In order to give more to us, [the city] has to take from someone else. When other departments are taking 6% cuts, to put a wish list out there is really like rubbing salt in their wounds."

Nonetheless, like most department heads, Branch does have a modest wish list, including primarily technological needs: public Internet access at every branch, online access to the library's catalog, more computer workstations, and a computer program to keep track of "point of sale cash" - money collected from fines and fees. Branch says that long-term, it would probably take
$4.5 million to get the library's technological systems to where they should be. But for now, $1.2 million would be a good start. "Seriously, I doubt we'll see it," she says. Instead, the library will be setting up a foundation and approaching the private sector, she says, in the hopes of attracting corporate sponsors "to help build our technological infrastructure."

Also, Branch says, she wishes the department could be doing more renovations at the central library while it's closed down. Mainly safety issues are being addressed now: asbestos removal, new lighting and carpeting, the elimination of fire hazards. Things like moving the circulation desk and modifications for people with disabilities will have to wait.

"We're doing what needs to be done," she says. "When the citizens come in next year and see how improved the library is, I think they'll be pleased." n City Council will hold a work session on the library's budget on Wednesday, August 23, from 9am-5pm, at the Town Lake Center, 721 Barton Springs Rd. Council is scheduled to vote on the 1995-1996 city budget on September 13 at 1pm.