Library Trustees Make Their Case

Dear Editor:

This June 3 our City-County Library will be on the ballot for mill levy approval. At this time, our budget is underfunded. We have applied for grants, solicited donations and received financial support from Friends of the Library for our children’s shelves and we still need to make more cuts in our budget. There are also some structural improvements needed to our library that we cannot address. The basement should be accessible to all. Heating, lighting and damaged windows are just some of the issues.

Our public library is funded by the county (80 percent) and city (20 percent) and is governed by a five-member board made up of three city and two county representatives. The library serves approximately 7,800 county residents, including the residents of Glasgow.

Services include but are not limited to, material lending, inter-library loan, e-books, computers (seven patron computers averaging 30 patrons a day), and children’s programs. We have 10-15 children for a regular Thursday morning story time and last year almost 160 children were registered for the summer reading program.

Libraries are moving forward though services and resources. To quote our library director, Emily Wilson, “Libraries are no longer just a closet full of books.” Our community deserves to have a library that is more than a building full of books.

To help us reach our goals we need your support on this mill levy.

Janet Markle

Library Board Chairperson