After rocky year, Lodi public library back in black. (Portage Daily Register, 9/26/2019)
To stay in the black, the library needs to continue lobbying for money and finding new ways to attract and engage patrons, according to Groves-Lloyd. She and members of the library board organized the forum, the second this year, to gather community input on how to raise money.
The ideas rolled in: encourage people to put the library in their wills as an endowment; sell naming rights to the library after a major renovation; involve high school students in a remodel to bring down construction costs; partner with real estate agents to market the library as a community asset; start a gardening tool lending library.
One idea that got hoots of approval came from town of Lodi resident Mary Ann Johnson. She suggested the library switch some book club meetings to a local bar, then solicit donations once everyone has a glass of wine in hand.
That means you!
Until last year, the library employed two full-time directors at an ending annual salary of $54,080 each. The co-directors, Kristine Millard and Trisha Frankland, had started part-time and over about a decade worked up to full-time status. Millard and Frankland were “fabulous,” but their salaries were not sustainable as the library started coming up short in its budget, Groves-Lloyd said. In December 2018, as the operational deficit reached $77,000, the library board terminated the co-director positions and switched to a one-director model.
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