Here are cuts to library resources that were already made LAST year, after those budget cuts in which the libraries were cut to the bone. Or what we thought was the bone:
Academic OneFile - Temporarily unavailable due to budget cuts.
America the Beautiful - No longer available as of 7/1/2010, due to library budget cuts
Baltimore Sun - No longer available as of August 2010, due to library budget cuts.
ConsumerReports.org - Discontinued due to budget cuts.
CQ Global Researcher - No longer available as of October 2010, due to library budget cuts.
CQ Researcher - No longer available as of October 2010, due to library budget cuts.
Encyclopedia Americana - No longer available as of 7/1/2010, due to library budget cuts.
Facts.com World News Digest - No longer available, as of May 1, 2010, due to budget cuts.
Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia - No longer available as of 7/1/2010, due to library budget cuts.
Health Reference Center Academic - No longer available as of August 2010, due to library budget cuts.
Historical Newspapers Extra Edition - Temporarily unavailable, due to budget cuts.
Issues and Controversies - No longer available, as of May 1, 2010, due to budget cuts.
Lands and Peoples - No longer available as of 7/1/2010, due to library budget cuts.
New Book of Knowledge - No longer available as of 7/1/2010, due to library budget cuts.
New Book of Popular Science - No longer available as of 7/1/2010, due to library budget cuts.
Tell Me More - Tell Me More is no longer available, due to library budget cuts.
Today's Science - No longer available, as of May 1, 2010, due to budget cuts.
And this year? Michael Laris’ article in The Washington Post tells some of the story. In his article he writes that "Spending on libraries has dropped by more than a quarter since 2008 - from $40 million to $29 million - and the materials budget has been lopped in half, to $3 million."
Laris writes,
"In Bethesda, shrinking spending means not renewing a bipartisan and demographically diverse list of periodicals next year. The Nation and Weekly Standard are out. Car and Driver? Town and Country? Gone. Also among the titles to be discontinued: Runner's World and Bicycling, Entrepreneur and Fast Company, Nature and the Journal of the American Medical Association.
In Damascus, it has meant scaling way back on efforts to help babies, toddlers and preschoolers - and their parents and caregivers - get ready for early reading. The branch organized 124 early reading programs during the last fiscal year, and attendance topped 4,000. But in the first half of this fiscal year, about 800 participants squeezed into just 13 such programs.
The cuts also have meant earlier closing times."
So what should be cut instead? Please identify something else to take the place of the savings that would have otherwise been found in the libraries. No cuts will be popular, yet many cuts must be made.
ReplyDeleteThe reality is that libraries as we have known them are obsolete. Until someone changes the concept of a "library," the traditional model will continue to be cut away.
Instead? We have lots of suggestions and more to come. Just follow this link...
ReplyDeletehttp://parentscoalitionmc.blogspot.com/search/label/Cut%20of%20the%20Week
Here's $100K: to three groups: George B. Thomas Academy, Asian American LEAD, Peer 2 Peer Tutors. For "Academic Services."
ReplyDeletehttp://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/boe/meetings/agenda/2010-11/2011-0111/4.1.1Procurement25,000.pdf
$243K for Promethean Board upgrades. We can't afford the ones we have, and they are only rented. Send them back, save the lease payments AND the ongoing maintenance and bulb costs.
http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/boe/meetings/agenda/2010-11/2010-1025/3.1.125000.pdf
And then there was the $200K for "consultants" on using the Promethean boards...
http://parentscoalitionmc.blogspot.com/2010/03/classroom-teachers-or-critical-thinking.html
Sounds like some good cuts. Only $30 million more to go.
ReplyDeleteCheck your math anonymous.
ReplyDeleteThe credit card tab was $5.2 million last year.
Promethean annual lease payment on SOME of the Promethean Boards is $3.3 million.
Anonymous -- even though libraries as we have known them may becoming obsolete that doesn't mean they cost nothing to run. Licenses for e-resources are actually a lot more expensive than for a print version (or many print versions). The information that many of us rely on as authoritative is not necessarily free just because the Internet makes it easier to access.
ReplyDeleteKatsmi,
ReplyDeleteThe Board of Education President doesn't care. He says no point in libraries if public schools don't have tons of money and teach students to read.
Libraries obsolete? Have you been to your local library lately? You can barely get a seat; they are packed. You have to line up to use the computers. As laris' article said, there are hundreds of people waiting to check out best sellers and other books. Libraries are not 'obsolete.' Unless you mean we all own kindles. Is that what you mean? If anyone out there wants to buy me a kindle and spring for the $10 for each book I read, and $3.00 per month for every magazine I read, please post to this comment list.
ReplyDeletefreestategal
I will add this: it is the Schools that are obsolete. Government bureaucrats running a bloated school system with outdated 'Promethean boards' and $300 light bulbs? Why? wonderful curricula are available online. Other school systems are giving each child an ipad. Children are learning at their own past online. TED conferences and great discussions are available online. It is the schools that are obsolete.
ReplyDeletefreestategal
I realize I am way outnumbered here so I expect to get blasted by posting this, but don't you think the cuts you are suggesting would upset different groups also? You have your interests and others have theirs. Who (besides you) is to say your priorities are the right ones?
ReplyDeletefreestatelegal - traditional libraries _are_ obsolete, you just can't see it yet.
Yes, we are sure that the - ADMINISTRATORS WHO LIKE TO EAT OUT ASSOCIATION and the ADMINISTRATORS WHO LIKE TO BUY MILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN TECH TOYS COMMITTEE will be very upset with our suggestions.
ReplyDeleteThe point of our suggestions is to protect STUDENTS in CLASSROOMS.