California: The Epicenter of Tool-Lending Libraries

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Link to November 17 San Francisco Chronicle article, "Berkeley Tool-Lending Library inspires others".

Excerpt: The 31-year-old Berkeley Public Library institution - the oldest continuously running library of its kind in the nation - is more popular than ever and has helped turn the Bay Area into arguably the tool-lending capital of the nation.

Most states don't have a tool-lending library within their borders. The Bay Area has five, not including several local libraries that lend out specialized energy-related or earthquake-retrofit tools.

The Temescal Tool Lending Library in Oakland is another thriving offshoot of the public library, which, like Berkeley, has served as a national model for other startups.

Santa Rosa has a tool library run by community members. The San Francisco Clean City Coalition is in the process of moving its popular Tool Lending Center, and the Marin Open Garden Project is in the early stages of building its library of garden tools.

Tool lending is a great fit for the Bay Area, for reasons beyond the region's quickness to embrace progressive values. Many local do-it-yourselfers want to improve their residences and yards, but don't have the money or storage space to buy the tools. The lines that often go out the door are only getting longer as the economy struggles.

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Oshkosh's 'Mom-and-Pop' Grocery Stores

Wow!  This article brings back memories.

In the mid-1980s, while Head of Extension Services at the Oshkosh Public Library, I conducted research on Oshkosh's physical development as seen through its groceries stores, gas stations, and post-World War II housing construction using the library's extensive collection of city directories. Never got anywhere close to the book-writing stage, though. Pleased to learn that Dan Radig has provided us with a comprehensive look at Oshkosh's 'mom-and-pop' grocery stores, a fascinating aspect of every ('older') community's local business (and social) history.

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Link to November 28 Oshkosh Northwestern article, "Book chronicles 'mom and pop' groceries on south and west sides of Oshkosh".

Excerpt: Dan Radig quickly ate up his newest journey into the days when small family-owned and operated groceries ruled in Oshkosh.

Radig, 54, a lifelong resident of the city and admitted history buff, was casually looking through addresses and locations of former "mom and pop" groceries and suddenly it turned into something much bigger.

"From the information I had gathered I decided that I would put something together on grocery stores," he said.

After five years of pouring through city directories and archives at the Oshkosh Public Library and interviewing residents, Radig said his soft-cover book "Grocers of the South Side of Oshkosh," which has more than 600 pages and 50 original photos of former family-owned groceries, should be out by end of December.

The book features a listing of the 504 owners of "mom and pop groceries," the locations of stores and information on each of the buildings that were on the south and west sides of Oshkosh. Those groceries, Radig said, occupied about 60 buildings through the years with several of the buildings housing different owners over the years.

Here are some visual representations of my 1985 research.

A brief explanation of the Grocery Store Locations key.  The 'mostly' refers to the fact a few early versions of the 'supermarket' had set up shop in Oshkosh.  'Survivors' -- there's one in the upper-left-hand corner of the map below -- refer to 'mom-and-pops' that were listed in the 1950 Oshkosh City Directory and were still in business at the same location, but perhaps under a different name, 34 years later.

Here's a portion of my mapping exercise.

Here's my mapping of gas station locations.

From this map, you can clearly see Oshkosh's north-south orientation.  (North & South Main, Jackson/Oregon.)

And finally, a color-coded mapping of post-World War II home construction.
1945-1949
1950-1959
1960-1969
1970-1979
1980-

North/Northeast Oshkosh

West/South/Southwest Oshkosh

I spent countless hours biking the streets and road of Oshkosh and Winnebago County, soaking up my environment like the proverbial sponge.  And the color-coding required frequent additional bike rides to verify my work.  Who says research isn't a fitness activity?

States Continue to Feel Recession's Impact "b/w" Internet Shopping Takes Money from State Sales Tax

Link to October 7 Center on Budget and Policy Priorities Center report.

Excerpt:  The worst recession since the 1930s has caused the steepest decline in state tax receipts on record. State tax revenues were 8.4 percent lower in the 2009 fiscal year than in 2008, and an additional 3.1 percent lower in 2010, while the need for state-funded services did not decline. As a result, even after making very deep spending cuts over the last two years, states continue to face large budget gaps. At least 46 states struggled to close shortfalls when adopting budgets for the current fiscal year (FY 2011, which began July 1 in most states). These came on top of the large shortfalls that 48 states faced in fiscal years 2009 and 2010. States will continue to struggle to find the revenue needed to support critical public services for a number of years, threatening hundreds of thousands of jobs. States face:

• Sharply constrained budgets in 2011. To balance their 2011 budgets, states had to address fiscal year 2011 gaps totaling $125 billion, or 19 percent of budgets in 46 states. Most did so with spending cuts and revenue increases.[1] This total is likely to grow over the course of the fiscal year, which started July 1 in most states. The fact that the gaps have been filled and budgets are balanced does not end the story. Families hit hard by the recession will experience the loss of vital services throughout the year, and the negative impact on the economy will continue.
• No diminishment in budget problems in 2012. States’ fiscal problems will continue in the current fiscal year and likely beyond. Only six states are reporting new mid-year shortfalls for fiscal year 2011 – a sign that conditions have stabilized compared to this time last year. But most states anticipate significant problems next year. Already 39 states have projected gaps that total $112 billion for the following year (fiscal year 2012). Once all states have prepared estimates these are likely to grow to some $140 billion. 

"b/w" Link to November 28 Appleton Post-Crescent article.

Excerpt:   With no federal regulations requiring businesses to collect sales tax on out-of-state purchases, the amount of uncollected revenue continues to grow as online shopping becomes a more popular option.

The Wisconsin Department of Revenue estimates that the state loses out on $150 million each year in sales taxes it's unable to collect from Internet sales and catalog purchases made by Wisconsin consumers who order items from out-of-state vendors.

Nationwide, estimates show that states collectively lose between $16 billion and $18 billion per year in unpaid sales tax, with $8.7 billion coming directly from online sales.

OK, just doing the math -- i.e., setting aside the reality of how difficult this change in tax law would be to implement -- $16-$18 billion per year would cover 13-14% of states' $125 million budget gap in 2011.  Wisconsin's projected share of $150,000,000 wouldn't makes much of a dent in a $2,700,000,000 deficit.  (5.5%).  But you know it ain't gonna happen here.