The Good, Bad and Destructive
By Pat Rutkowski | New Britain Public Library Director at March 27, 2024 | 8:15 am | Print
Spring brings us good news and not so good news. The good news - the Friends of the Library will be holding their annual Spring Book Sale, April 8 – 11, with thousands of books at bargain prices. Now we have all heard that the book is dead, but you sure wouldn’t know it when you see all the donated books the Friends receive and sell in their book sale. Wednesday is Preview Day when you have first crack at all the treasures with an admission of $5. Of course, if you are a member of the Friends you can come on Wednesday for free. No admission for the remainder of the sale. Hours for the event: Wednesday, April 8, 2 pm – 6 pm, Thursday, April 9, 2 pm to 6 pm, Friday, April 10, 10 am to 4 pm, and Saturday, April 11, 9 am to 2 pm. Check out the new categories at this sale - first editions, all things King Arthur, maritime fiction and non-fiction and comic books. Plus, there will be a wonderful assortment of art books, magazines, museum catalogs, and instructional books. All proceeds benefit the library.
For the bad news - the Governor’s recommended budget cuts to the State Library will have a great impact on library users and libraries. These proposed cuts will eliminate all state funding for Connecticard, Connecticar, Grants to Public Libraries, and the CT Library Consortium. In addition, legislation has also been introduced that would also repeal the statutes that authorize these programs.
Libraries share so well, making budgets go further and saving library user’s money. The two programs that make this work are Connecticard and Connecticar: programs which have been in existence since the seventies. Thanks to Connecticard, a cooperative program, you can use your home library card to borrow items at any of the 192 CT public libraries that participate in this program. It comes in handy when you need something right away that we don’t own. You can go to a participating library and pick it up yourself, return it to us and we will get it back for you through Connecticar, a library to library delivery service to 224 libraries. This is the service that delivers those books that we get for you from other libraries. In return for the sharing of our collection to users of other libraries, we receive a reimbursement payment each year. Just this past year, another step in improved sharing for library users was made. Member libraries of our consortium, Library Connection, agreed to loan almost everything – a tremendous step getting desired items to library users. Before this, if a library owned something, you had to wait for its return. If it was a high demand item, with many requests, you could wait for months.
If these cuts go through the impact will be greatly felt. These services will disappear. The bottom line – you will not be able to use your library card at other public libraries to borrow items and it would be impossible for us to finance the valuable service to have items delivered to you at our library or returned to other libraries. Your library will no longer benefit from the services of the CT Library Consortium which provides training opportunities for staff and savings with discounts for supplies, materials and databases. These essential programs are all well used. Not only is the funding in jeopardy but the programs themselves, as Governor Malloy’s bill 942 would repeal the original legislation that created these programs. It will be their demise. Once gone…..all will be impossible to replace.
If these library services are important to you, contact your legislators. You can find their contact information at http://cga.ct.gov/asp/menu/CGAFindLeg.asp or call the Information Desk at the library at 860-224-3155, ext. 125.
Let’s not move backwards, destroying something that works so well, benefits so many, and send this tremendous, innovative sharing power back in time. Your voice is powerful. Make it heard.
