Friends of the Library

Help Jacksonville’s Libraries…
Support our petition drive

After several years of budget cuts, Friends of the Jacksonville Public Library and others concerned about the future of our library, started working on ways to achieve sustainable, dependable funding for our libraries.  The first step was an in-depth JCCI study, funded, in part, by FJPL.  That study recommended creating a special tax district for libraries and the first step is a petition drive for a straw vote on the next available election ballot (probably 2014).

FJPL is asking registered Jacksonville voters to sign a petition.
Petitions are available at our bookstores – in the Main Library and at University Park Library – and they’ll be available at our Book Warehouse Sale.
Besides signing a petition, you may be willing/able to help us by taking some petitions and getting your friends and neighbors to sign.
The Times-Union editorial below is an excellent statement of the situation we face. Please help us.

Harry Reagan
FJPL President
Harry.reagan@comcast.net

Jacksonville libraries need a
plan for an independent future
Posted: August 22, 2012 - 12:01am

For a city with severe reading issues, one would think that the public library system would be a major priority.

And it is, supposedly, but that’s only a surface reality. Beneath the surface, the library system is slowly deteriorating into mediocrity.

Let’s review the sad facts.

Roofs need repairs, for instance, but there is no maintenance budget.

The Northside would like its own regional library, but there is no capital budget.

The materials budget is being cut every year, so there are fewer items to meet demand that had been surging during the recession.

Hours are being cut. The next step — closures.

But wasn’t the library one of the centerpieces of the Better Jacksonville Plan? Yes.

And weren’t beautiful new structures built and old ones refurbished?

Yes, but the operating budget was not similarly protected.

And the library board, which ought to be guiding the system through these tough times, has no real independent powers. So the system can’t save revenues for capital or maintenance. It can’t even save its fine revenues, which go into the general fund.

Some of the library system’s issues are not connected to the recession. Just as brick and mortar bookstores are closing due to the digital revolution, libraries are facing some of the same pressures. Yet the vast majority of the library system’s loans are the old-fashioned kind: real books, CDs and movies.

But this crisis still is not fully realized by the people of Jacksonville.

Unfortunately, this message is not getting out to the people because the library’s condition looks OK on the surface.

If the roof is leaking, people won’t notice unless they see the water dripping into a pail.

If there are not enough books to lend, it won’t occur with a dramatic announcement, but it will just take longer and longer to get access to them.

So a group of library lovers helped fund a study by Jacksonville Community Council Inc. to look for solutions to this dysfunctional arrangement.

The conclusion was that the library system needs some independence. Accountability, yes, but not gridlock.

It may look like abandoning consolidation, but the proposal that emanated from the JCCI study is a thoughtful one.

The next step following the study is a straw ballot in the next local election. If successful, a binding vote would follow, then enabling legislation. This would be a lengthy process.

The district would be designed to fit into the Jacksonville culture.

Elected officials would serve on the board, for instance, not appointees. And there would be no additional taxes levied without a vote of the people.

But the keys would allow the board to plan, to make decisions, to get out of this cycle of gridlock.

Maybe the system can’t afford so many branches.

Maybe the next generation of libraries includes traveling librarians spreading the culture of reading throughout the city.

Maybe there are ideas we haven’t even considered yet, but they will never be imagined, much less implemented, without independence.

Libraries are just too important to the American ideal of universal education to allow them to wither.

Jacksonville should be leading the way to the new library future.

Right now, local libraries are just stuck. An independent board is needed to get them out of this rut.