Sunday, May 17, 2009

Tough Decisions at Milwaukee Public Library

Link to May 16 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article, "Library Board considers cost-cutting that might shut locations".

Excerpt: The city's 13 public libraries are spaced just two or three miles apart, offering free access to literature, information and computers in nearly every corner of town. They also provide meeting rooms that help them serve as community centers for their neighborhoods.

But all that could change, as Milwaukee Public Library officials grapple with city budget shortfalls and looming multimillion-dollar upgrades to aging buildings.

The city's Library Board is studying whether to replace some existing neighborhood libraries with fewer and larger regional libraries, buttressed by a network of computer centers and tiny "express" libraries in supermarkets or coffee shops.

Library officials say a new approach would let them keep providing much of the same service at lower cost. They also say these would be long-term changes, not a shift for 2010.

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