14 Jobs Axed @ the Grand Rapids Public Library

Grand Rapids job cuts to push library back in time, critic says. (Mlive, 3/27/2012)

Excerpt: While Grand Rapids Public Library leaders preferred staff cuts to closing branches or reducing hours of operation, a unanimous vote tonight to ax 14 jobs including the Web branch manager will shut the city system’s “virtual front door,” said a college librarian who criticized the $494,000 budget cut. 

Library Director Marcia Warner plans to turn responsibility of grpl.org over to her communications staff, but that “is not going to work,” said Lisa M. Rabey, systems and Web librarian at Grand Rapids Community College. 

“You’re going to see a stale Web site,” Rabey said.  “You’ve essentially just put yourself back in the 20th century.”

Faced with a revenue gap caused largely by declining property tax receipts, Warner proposed a $9.2 million budget that met a board goal of maintaining hours of operation at the library's eight branches. More than half of the job cuts will come from the library’s planned implementation of a radio frequency identification, or RFID, system. Warner said the other job cuts are part of an ongoing effort to make library operations more lean.