Fortifying Your Library

How Does a Recession Affect Programming Attendance?

Welcome back, and thank you for sticking with me! To explore how libraries behave during a recession, I’ve utilized metrics that align with the time frames in Mabe’s study, using data from the Annual Report Information Statistics (ARIS) submitted by libraries annually. Although ARIS has evolved over the years, the data available from 2006 onward allows us to make consistent year-to-year comparisons. While your library might have additional data, I’ve limited my analysis to data points that have remained consistent since 2006.

Basic Calculations

Let’s examine programming attendance—how many people attended library programs—before and during the Great Recession. For the years 2006, 2007, and 2008, the average program attendance was:

2006: 5,200
2007: 5,550
2008: 6,294
Total: 17,044
Average: 5,681

For 2009, 2010, and 2011, the figures were:

2009: 5,994
2010: 6,112
2011: 6,336
Total: 18,442
Average: 6,147

(I highly recommend putting any of your data into a spreadsheet and using the =SUM and =AVERAGE formulas to do the math for you.)** Right away, you can see that the data for both total attendance and state averages is higher during the recession. Massachusetts libraries saw, on average, 466 more people (6147-5681=466) attending programs each year when the economy was in a downturn.

Let’s see what the percentage change across that time period is. To calculate that number, you can use this formula: Percent change = (6147-5681)/5681. (There’s likely a spreadsheet formula to do this, but I didn’t find it. Feel free to let me know if you do!) We end up with a positive number 8.2% meaning that libraries saw 8.2% more people attending library programs than they did prior to the recession.

If we think about the basic implications of this information, it follows similar logic found in my previous posts. In an economic downturn, people are looking for ways to save money; they’re looking for options to help them get back into the job market; they want to refine skills to progress in their current positions or to start a new career; they’re trying to make more productive use of their time. The library can accommodate all of these needs through a variety of programming options, so it would make sense that communities take advantage of library programming more during a recession.

What About More Recently?

Let’s look at more recent averages for Massachusetts libraries:

2022: 1,434
2023: 7,733
2024: 9,436
Total: 18,603
Average: 6,201

This more recent data available provides some extremely interesting insights. First, let’s talk about the low number from 2022 and the elephant in the room- the pandemic. In FY22, which included 6 months of 2021, many libraries were barely open, let alone programming, so while this number in isolation is very low, it’s actually pretty impressive in context, especially given at least some of those programs were likely virtual which was new to everyone- including libraries.

Next, let’s take a look at those high numbers for 2023 and 2024: the lower of which is nearly 1,500 people higher than the highest number from the Great Recession, and the higher of which is 1700 people higher than the previous year. Without any potential extrapolation, these numbers are already telling us that library programming attendance has continued to increase beyond the recession, has rebounded in a big way after the pandemic, and is increasing year over year. So, while the 3-year average is only slightly higher than the Great Recession average (54 more people on average) the pandemic data is bringing that average way down. For the sake of curiosity, if we take the average of just 2023 and 2024, we get 8,585 people, an average increase of 2,438 people attending library programs over the Great Recession data.

Time to Project

Now let’s add extrapolation into the mix. To estimate what your programming attendance might look like in the event of a future downturn, take the average of your most current three years, multiply it by the percentage difference between pre- and Great Recession averages and add that number to your current 3-year average. For libraries across MA, that looks like:

(6201*.082) + 6201 = 6710.

This means the estimated average for program attendance in libraries across MA would increase by 509 people creating a total average of 6,710 people attending programs annually.

Given the outlier of the pandemic year, I think in this particular case,*** it would be worthwhile to calculate an approximate low-end and high-end estimate, as long as it is very clear which numbers we are using. So, if we consider an 8.2% increase for higher average program attendance of 8,585, there could be a potential increase in program attendance of 704 people, putting the total potential average program attendance at 9,289.

Implications for Libraries

Let’s take a look in what those numbers could mean for libraries in the event of a future economic downturn. The basics remain essentially the same as they did in my previous posts in this series. Libraries will face having to do more with less. In this case, they will be shouldering more people attending programs. Whether they are seeing an increase in attendance for programs they are already running or if, as they often do, libraries rise to meet the needs of their communities and create additional, new programming that people attend, or some combination of the two, they will have less funds and fewer staff to accomplish this.

Invisible Work in Library Programming

Much like the summer reading statistics from my last post, this assessment doesn’t take the full picture of invisible work into account. Programming is often done at all staff levels (from part-time paraprofessionals to full-time, MLIS holding department heads and, occasionally, library administration), and any loss in staffing will essentially take away institutional and specialized knowledge that may not be so easily transferred to another staff member.****

Loss of a staff member often means loss of a program (or programs) and leaves the remaining staff scrambling to fill in the gap. Programming is also, and I cannot stress this enough, hard work. I know from experience. It is largely a labor of love born of passion, enthusiasm, and the unique intersection of community need and cultivated skill. I know very few programming librarians who are not revived by the creation of a new program or finding out they have (or have always wanted to learn, usually on their own time) a skill that can be beneficial to their community. But I also know very few programming librarians who are not routinely tired.^

What Library Programming Is

Library programming is a great deal more than what patrons see for the 40 min – 1 hour when they come for a lecture, discussion, cooking class, story time, resume building, crafting klatch, etc. Any program involving an outside speaker or performer requires negotiating dates (and often speaker fees), attending to the performer’s needs and preparing the venue for the speaker’s requests. There is the prepping beforehand of materials, samples, supplies, etc., many of which the programming library will have to acquire themselves, that will be used during many programs. There is the coordination among other librarians to ensure that the library’s spaces are not being scheduled for different programs at the same time. They will have to keep track of registrants, ensuring that fire codes and any outside programmer specifications have been followed. Much of this will all be undertaken months in advance because they will need to publicize the event, including the creation of flyers, social media posts, making sure front line staff are aware of the program, adding the event to library calendars, etc. And since many libraries do not have a line item dedicated to library programming, many library programming staff will be tasked with figuring out how to pay for a program, whether this involved requesting donations, making an entreaty from the library’s Friends or Foundation, applying for a grant, or getting creative with the supplies the library already has on-hand.^^

The above paragraph describes the effort that goes into just the preparation for one library program. Now consider that most library staff members who program, run several programs at a time, mixing weekly programs with monthly programs with special events, and must keep track of all of those programs and run through the paragraph of abbreviated considerations I just listed out for each one of them while also going through their own specialized checklist depending on the particular needs of the programs they are running. I’ll spare you the redux of what staff need to attend to during and after a program. Library staff members who program are often a combination of event planners, contract negotiators, grant writers, performers, marketers, graphic designers and party hosts – and that is just for their programming duties. Many programming staff may also be front-line library workers, managers, catalogers and otherwise hold different roles within their regular duties.

An increase of 8.2%, which is a smaller percentage increase than most of what we’ve looked at in these posts, amounting to about 509 people attending programs over the course of a year may seem less significant than some of those larger percentages I’ve discussed before. But taken in context with the invisible work that goes into programming and the likelihood that libraries will be taking on these additional attendees with fewer staff, fewer funds, and fewer hours open, thereby condensing the amount of people, the broader picture becomes one of an overstretched staff struggling to meet their community’s increased needs with fewer resources with which to do that.

*Refer back to my first post for a refresh on what those years were.

** Fun fact: if you take the average of all 6 years and if you take the average of the 2 averages for each 3-year block you get the exact same number. I wasted my time checking on that so you don’t have to!

*** The reason I’m making the exception for this particular data set is because the extremely low number for 2022 is not mirrored in the other statistics I talked about in my previous posts. On balance, for all of the other data points that I considered, the 2022 numbers were reasonably close to the 2023 and 2024 numbers; they were not so glaringly different when compared to the 2 later years as they are for programming and therefore did not have the same adverse impact for the 3-year average.

**** You may be surprised to find out just how much specialized knowledge is involved in running a baby story time or that not every personality type is well-suited to offering technology help sessions.

^ To be fair, I know few library workers in general who are not routinely tired, but for now, I’ll stay focused on the subject matter at hand.

^^ Hence, why so many crafts, especially in children’s departments, involve toilet paper rolls.

~ Al Hayden, MBLC Library Advisory Specialist

How do Branches and Bookmobiles Fare During a Recession?

In the past few blog posts I’ve largely focused on libraries as a whole: all departments, all locations, funding distributed throughout a library, staffing in all parts of a library’s location. While they are not especially common in Massachusetts, library branches and/or bookmobiles (hereafter referred to as outlets) can play a large role in ensuring community access to library services. So, let’s take a dive into how an economic downturn might affect the services offered outside of a main or central library and see how they compare to some of my previous posts’ discoveries.

Library Outlets

Library outlets hold a special place in my heart. My first library job was running a neighborhood branch of a fairly large library. I saw firsthand how people mostly visited on foot or bikes (as opposed to driving or public transit), how heavily it was visited by families and people who have been in the area for generations, how personalized the services could be because it was a smaller space with a high proportion of regulars. It was a true definition of a community gathering space where neighbors would catch up after bumping into each other at the circulation desk and kids would meet after school to do homework together. Not every library branch or bookmobile will look precisely like this and that’s the point. The branch that I ran was the type of space I just described because of the makeup of its neighborhood.

That’s the beauty of library outlets; they take on the distinctive characteristics of the area that surrounds them and the people that visit them. They are a unique opportunity for a library to provide services to people who may not otherwise have access to library services. They serve a smaller group than a main or central library and have fewer staff and funds as a result. But outlets know how to use their limited resources to tailor their collections and services to the portion of the community they serve. I give this background because not every community has bookmobiles or branches. Some communities are so small that their main library takes on the qualities of a branch library. Some larger communities are centrally located with accessible public transit and/or parking. And some communities may benefit from expanding services to an outlet but are unable to afford the undertaking. According to ARIS (from FY24, our most recent data for now), there are 98 library outlets in MA across 38 municipalities. So only about 11% of municipalities in the Commonwealth have bookmobiles and/or branches with many of those cities and towns having multiple locations within their borders.

With such a small number of MA libraries having outlets at all, why look at their data? Even in the well-established and much-loved community branch I worked at, the moment budget difficulties were on the horizon, someone inevitably floated the idea of closing down a branch to save costs. These ideas never went anywhere beyond that, largely because the community members of the branch were vocal about their support. However, in the event of another recession, if budget shortfalls are severe enough, outlets may find the idea of their closure taken a bit more seriously. So, let’s take a look at the potential value outlets offer their communities.

Outlet Circulation and Visitors

Let’s start with circulation and visitors since those were the first metrics I discussed and those used in the original study that inspired this series of data-dives.* The average number of circulations pre-recession in library outlets compared to the average number of Great Recession circulations uncovered a 27.4% increase in circulations. Looking at the pre-recession vs Great Recession visitor numbers, there was a 52.3% increase in foot traffic into the outlets. Let’s compare that to the numbers for libraries overall. Recall that:

Pre- to Great Recession circulation in libraries increased by 12.5%
Pre- to Great Recession visitors in libraries increased by 32.4%

This means that for library outlets, the circulation in the outlet location more than doubled compared to libraries as a whole, and the increase in outlet visitors was higher by about 20% compared to libraries overall during the Great Recession.

If we extrapolate these percentages, assuming they will apply in the event of another economic downturn, library outlets are looking at an additional 12,584 circulations per year, which works out to 242 more circulations every week. Put another way, outlets could circulate more than 34 extra items per day which could total 58,447 circulations annually. For visitors, outlets could be looking at an additional 18,401 people each year, which adds an extra 351 people every week. So, foot traffic could increase in outlets by more than 50 people every day. Practically speaking, outlets are not open as many days as a central, main or single library is which means that these numbers, on any given day are likely to be higher, adding an additional strain on resources that are designed to be somewhat smaller than their larger counterparts.

Outlet Open Hours

Now let’s take a look at how outlets compare to main or central libraries in terms of how often they are open. On average, outlets are open about 63% of the hours that a central or main library are open. This is pretty consisted regardless of the time frame. This consistency is helpful and makes me more comfortable in comparing the outlets’ individual data with the overall library data as it limits the variability involved at least somewhat. Let’s examine, then, how much the average outlet’s hours changed between on their own between time periods:

Pre-recession = Average outlet open 1,632 hours annually (about 31 hours weekly)
Great Recession = Average outlet open 1,517 hours annually (about 29 hours weekly)

This difference of about 2 hours each week is similar to the libraries overall; however, when you’re dealing with smaller numbers, the percentage of hours affected goes up. Library outlets had 7.1% fewer open hours during the Great Recession than they did pre-recession. Put another way, the community members relying on their local branch or bookmobile for library services had 7.1% fewer opportunities to do so. This is in comparison to the 2.7% reduction in libraries overall between those two time periods.

If we look to a potential future that may include a recession, a 7.1% decrease in open hours would bring outlets down to 1,508 hours each year (compared to the 1623 hours they have been open on average during the past 3 FY). Once again, this works out to about 2 fewer hours each week, but as we saw in the numbers above, these compressed hours, already lower than what their more robust counterparts offer, could be trying to accommodate 242 more items circulated and 352 additional people through their doors during those shorter time spans.

Reference Transactions

The last reliable metric we have for outlet data going back far enough are the reference transactions they averaged across time periods. Again, because an outlet serves a smaller portion of the community than its main library or the library system as a whole, the number of reference transactions are going to be smaller than what I discussed in the previous blog post. I would operate under the assumption, however, that these statistics are also widely underreported. Here are the numbers:

Pre-recession = Average outlet fielded 5,301 patron questions
Great Recession = Average outlet fielded 8,016 patron questions

This means that during the great recession, reference transactions increased by 51.2%. This is a pretty large jump in the number of questions that patrons asked, especially considering that reference transactions in libraries overall went up by 14%.

There is a large uptick in the number of reference transactions in the last 3 years. Outlets have seen an average of 18,985 patron questions every year. That is a 137% increase in patron questions from the average number of questions during the Great Recession. ** The recent past has seen an average of 18,085 patron questions each year. Extrapolating percentages above into a possible future in which an economic downturn occurs, outlets could be looking at an increase of 9,264 patron questions each year, or an extra 178 questions per week. This means that staff could be fielding an additional 25 questions every day.

I think it would be reasonable to argue that when people rely more on libraries overall during an economic downturn, they rely even more on the community outlets that provide those personalized services.

The Bigger Picture

The fact that the percentages for outlets were considerably higher than for libraries overall can seem startling but put in context it makes a certain amount of sense. While library branches are smaller in staff, funding, building size, often just about every library parameter we can measure, their proportional impact is considerable. This is likely a function of the nature of outlets; they are tailored to their communities. While library systems need to keep the broadest range of patrons in mind, outlets need to use the smaller amount of resources they are allocated to focus on what their community needs the most and spend those resources (whether it is staff time, funding, space, etc.) accordingly. They also have a smaller population of people to interact with, which means they can make more personalized recommendations and tailor their questions more specifically because they know who they are working with. That impact could potentially be greater in the event there is a recession in the future. Remember, library outlets by their nature operate with fewer hours and smaller staff sizes than main or central libraries. We are looking at a potential increase in all the patron metrics while simultaneously seeing a decrease in operations metrics. If your municipality has an outlet, consider how your experience may differ with more visitors, a busier public services desk and fewer opportunities to have that experience in the first place.

I think it would be reasonable to argue that when people rely more on libraries overall during an economic downturn, they rely even more on the community outlets that provide those personalized services. Given this data, it’s reasonable to wonder, if library outlets are offering a higher return on investment than library systems, which already have an astounding ROI. If your library has an outlet, it would be worth mentioning these statistics to your advocates and those making financial decisions. In the event of an economic downturn, if someone wonders whether the municipality can afford to have more than 1 library location, the counter argument may be that the community the outlet serves cannot afford its loss, especially given the potential increase in usage.

*Same parameters for years apply: Pre-recession = FY2006-08; Great Recession = FY2009-11. However, for some reason, the outlet data for FY2009 was not available on the MBLC’s statistics website. Given the patterns from the 2009, 2010 and 2011 data in other categories, I believe using the 2010 and 2011 is a reasonable approximation for the Great Recession averages. The 3 years that I am using to determine the most recent numbers for extrapolation are FY2022, FY2023 and FY2024.

** There could be a number of reasons for this including, better and more rigorous ways to reliably report patron’s questions on the ARIS, more patrons asking questions at their local branches, increased trust in the outlets, etc. I don’t have enough data to say for certain what the cause of this increase is, but considering the average of the past three years had each year consistently higher than the Great Recession, I would still consider this data to be accurate and not an anomaly.

~ Al Hayden, MBLC Library Advisory Specialist

How Were Library Open Hours, Children’s Services, and Patron Questions Impacted by a Recession?

In the last few blog entries I’ve done some extrapolations about what library services could look like if we head into an economic downturn. There are a few more metrics I’d like to explore as I think they can paint a broader picture of not only what libraries may face in the future, but also highlight what libraries are currently doing. It’s never a bad idea to have current information at hand for your library advocates.

What story do library open hours tell us?

Pre-recession, * MA libraries were open an average of 2,536 hours every year, which works out to libraries being open 49 hours each week. During the Great Recession libraries were open an average of 2,467 hours every year, or 47 hours each week. This is a 2.7% reduction in open hours or 2 hours less each week that the library was available for services. At first glance, this doesn’t seem like a very large difference, especially considering that the differences among other metrics were considerably larger. So, what does this mean in terms of the bigger picture?

Let’s look at those stats in terms of usage. If circulations went up by 12.5% and attendance went up by 32.4% but hours were reduced by 2.7%, that means there were 2 fewer hours for the library staff to accommodate the additional 518 visitors per week and 315 more items they were circulating every week.** Remember that staffing during the Great Recession went down by 2.3%. Having the library open for fewer hours, even if it’s 2 fewer hours each week, is still more of a burden that library staff will have to bear in terms of helping more people in a shorter amount of time. Again, these percentages are not high, but even small numbers trending downward can be impactful in terms of how libraries can accommodate the services their patrons rely on and the potential uptick in patrons needing those services.

The average of open hours for the most current 3 years we have data for is 2581 hours per year or 50 open hours each week. If we extrapolate the 2.7% reduction in hours experienced in the past recession, that brings the average open hours per week down, once again, by 2 hours per library. I’ve already estimated the increase in circulation would add 441 items and 455 visitors per week, in addition to the circulation and foot traffic that libraries are already receiving. If staffing also goes down 2.3% as it did during the last recession, then we are once again looking at potentially fewer people available during fewer hours to offer services to an increasing number of people who may need an increasing number of items. Are libraries prepared for that? Based on the funding numbers I looked at in my last post, and considering the rising costs of popular items like ebooks, maybe not.

What about the children?

Let’s take a look at children’s services in MA libraries and the effect the Great Recession had on them. We have few statistics that go back to 2006, but there are 2 interesting metrics we can track back that far: children’s circulations and summer reading participation. Let’s start with the circulation statistics for just juvenile items.***

Pre-Recession, libraries averaged 50,575 children’s circulations
Great Recession, libraries averaged 57,268 children’s circulations
Currently, libraries average 58,682 children’s circulations

During the great recession, children’s items circulated on average, about 13.2% more than they did pre-recession. That’s a slightly higher percentage than all library items (including children’s) circulating as a whole. This works out to an extra 134 items every week circulating through children’s departments during the recession.

Current circulations for children’s items average 168 items per day. Add an additional 13.2% of circulation items on this adds another 22 totaling 190 children’s items circulated each day. Framing that in the weekly terms I used above, circulation desks will experience an uptick of an additional 155 items every week in children’s items alone.

Summer reading statistics were probably the most personally surprising of the statistics I looked at.

Pre-recession MA libraries averaged 319 summer reading participants
Great Recession stats averaged 433 summer reading participants

The average number of children participating in summer reading increased by 114 participants, an increase of 35.6%. As someone who ran a children’s department for several years, I can tell you, summer is chaos for children’s departments in libraries. A 35.6% increase of summer reading participation is simultaneously the stuff librarian dreams are made of and also an exceptionally daunting amount of work. “Summer reading” is not just encouraging students to fill out a book list. It is school visits, coordinating prizes, booklist creation to complement that year’s theme, reminding caregivers and kiddos that the summer reading list is optional, and they can read whatever they want. The labor involved in coordinating programming is an additional level of complexity and none of the work I just mentioned starts at the end of the school year. Many librarians start working out the details of summer reading in January/February. And all of this work involves consumables, staff time, program presenters, prizes and more; in other words, money and resources.

Today, there are considerably fewer summer reading participants than even pre-recession levels. There could be any number of reasons for this; the pandemic comes to mind as a big one, but I’m sure there are other factors at play.**** But even with the low summer reading participation numbers (MA libraries averaged 154 participants over the past 3 years), adding 35.6% to those numbers is still has an additional 55 kids participating in summer reading and the costs, work, and time that go into prepping a summer reading program may need to be scaled up accordingly.

Got Questions?

Having worked in various positions in libraries I can tell you unequivocally that reference transactions are chronically underreported. That observation makes what I found looking at reference transaction patterns even more intriguing.

What is a reference transaction? In layman’s terms, it’s any interaction that library staff have with patrons that involves the staff member answering a patron’s question of substance. It does NOT include:

“Where is the bathroom?”
“Can I get a library card?”
“Can you print this?”

It DOES include:

“Which bus line should I take to get to x?”
“Can you recommend a good book?”
“Can you tell me more about this program?”
“How do I to this task on the computer?”

For the purposes of this post, I’ll use reference transactions and patron questions interchangeably.

The breadth of reference transactions is vast, and the nature of library work is often so hectic that it’s incredibly easy to forget how many people you’ve interacted with in a span of time. So, when considering these numbers, keep in mind that they are probably much smaller than any particular library’s reality.

Here’s the breakdown we’re looking at:

Pre-recession – MA libraries averaged 13,802 reference transactions
Great Recession – MA libraries averaged 15,735 reference transactions

This was an increase of 14%, a higher percent than the increase in circulated items. Put another way, each library average almost 2,000 additional patron questions over the course of each year. This makes a certain amount of sense. In an economic downturn, everyone is faced with more uncertainty, there are fewer jobs, fewer resources, and people are often looking to a trusted source to find information to stretch the resources they have. Considering that libraries are among the most trusted public institutions in the country, and considering that libraries are uniquely positioned to:

help someone create a resume
turn a hobby into a new passion project/career
connect people with resources to help them during tough times
offer distractions from said tough times
provide resources that help struggling patrons stretch a dollar further

and so much more, it seems logical that the number of patrons asking question in a library would increase.

Libraries are either not fielding or not recording as many reference transactions in recent years (most likely a combination of both); the average number of reference transactions that have been reported in the last 3 years is 8,934. If we increase that number by 14%, library staff will still be fielding 1251 more questions over the course of a given year. Also keep in mind that while some questions patrons ask can be answered fairly quickly, others can become a bit of a project, including possible follow-ups with the inquiring patron. It would be a mistake to think that a patron question is a matter of taking up a library worker’s time for a minute or two, every time. Again, if we’re looking at potentially fewer open hours, the time patrons can come into the library will be condensed. If we’re looking at fewer staff working, that means the number of people patrons can come to with their questions will also be condensed. All of this equals a busier public services desk, which can potentially lead to more underreporting of statistics because library staff don’t have the time or the bandwidth to to log their reference interactions.

What might the future hold?

With the statistics I described above, combined with what I’ve explored in the past few posts, a potential picture of MA libraries during an economic downturn is emerging. It is one of a library that is open fewer hours, has fewer staff members, and is likely not funded enough to keep up with rising costs, but is still expected to accommodate an influx of patron visits, patron questions, patron participation, and circulated items.

None of these tasks come without work that is largely invisible to the general public, and usually stays invisible for good reason. Libraries employ professionals, experts who are highly skilled to get to know their communities, offer exceptional customer service, and tailor their services to their community’s needs. They are trained to make the public-facing work look effortless because that is part of being a professional. This is behind-the-scenes work that isn’t meant for public notice, but it doesn’t lesson the fact that an extraordinary amount of work is being put in to ensure that communities have the services that are most relevant to their members. In order to keep doing that work to the best of their ability, libraries and library workers, need the support that will help keep those services running smoothly. Without that support (support measured in more than just money), the quality of service that patrons are used to will likely suffer and, in some cases, some of the services that patrons are used to will be unsustainable, leading to their elimination.

How do we avoid, or at least minimize this potential outcome? Talk to your library advocates and let them know what stands to be lost and gained by keeping their library well supported in any season, but especially in the event of a recession. If the data I’ve explored so far demonstrates anything, it’s that people tend to rely more on libraries in tougher economic times and library staff do their best to provide services to their communities, regardless of the circumstances.

*I will be using the same time frame definitions as my previous posts have used, modelling the Mabe study that inspired the research for these posts:

Pre-recession = FY2006, 2007, 2008
Great Recession = FY2009, 2010, 2011
Current = FY2022, 2023, 2024 (FY24 is the most recent data I have to work from so far)

** These numbers were based on the daily totals found in this post <insert link when available> multiplied by 7, so:

45 extra circs per day x 7 days = 315 increased items circulated weekly
74 extra visitors per day x 7 days = 518 increased foot traffic weekly

*** I’m using the term juvenile here to refer to children only, not teens. Every library in MA is going to have their own age range they use to make these determinations, but infants to 5th grade (put another way: birth through elementary school) are common limiters. There are separate statistics for teen usage, but they do not go back far enough for me to analyze.

**** Unfortunately, I don’t have the data to delve into that side-quest (yet….)

~ Al Hayden, MBLC Library Advisory Specialist

What Might a Future Recession Look Like for MA Libraries? *

In my last post, I walked you through my discovery of library usage (in terms of circulation and attendance) increasing during the Great Recession, with the Great Recession defined as the fiscal years 2009, 2010, 2011 using Michael Mabe’s 2023 study. So, what can we do with that information? Given that this is a blog series where I try to help libraries fortify themselves, I’d like to use that information to extrapolate what could happen if we encounter another recession in near future and what that might mean in terms of our needs and services.

Let’s start with the basics of what we learned in my last post when I discovered that MA-specific data aligned reasonably well with the study I used as a model for my inquiry. To recap: Massachusetts libraries saw an average increase in circulation of 12.5% and an average increase in attendance of 32.4% during the Great Recession as compared to the 3 years before the recession. If those percentages were extrapolated to see a potential model for the future, what would that look like?*

Circulation

For the fiscal years 2022, 2023, and 2024, the total average circulation activity for MA libraries was 176,330 items. This includes books, periodicals, eBooks, other nonprint items such as Library of Things, basically anything that was transferred from the library (physically or digitally) to the hands of a patron. This also includes interlibrary loans (ILLs; items exchanged between libraries). If we apply the percentage increase in circulation that occurred in MA during the Great Recession**, the total average circulation over the next 3 years would be 198,437 items, or a potential increase of 22,107 items in a year.

What does this look like in terms of library service?

The average total circulation number of 176,330 works out to the library circulating about 483 items per day. This assumes that the library is open 365 days a year, which as libraries are municipal departments, is virtually impossible. So let’s factor in the 12 state holidays that libraries will observe, plus the day after Thanksgiving, and an extra 2 days for libraries to be closed*** for snow/weather conditions, building issues (no electricity, flooding, extreme heat, construction, etc.) or other situations out of most people’s control that may necessitate a library not opening to its patrons that day. When including days where a library will not be open to patrons, this increases the daily circulation for a given library right now to be 504 items per day.

An increase of more than 22,000 items in a year works out to an extra 61 items each day. If we include the library being closed for 15 days as I did above to calculate the current numbers, that number tics up to 63 items circulating per day. So, adding the potential increase in daily circulation, libraries may result in circulating 567 items every day they are open in the event of a significant economic downturn.

Attendance

The other major metric Mabe’s study examined to indicate library usage is how many people visited the library. The average attendance at any given MA library over the course of a year using FY2022, 2023, and 2024 data was 69,471**** This includes anyone who walked into the library for any reason including but not limited to: picking up a hold, asking a question, using public computers or Wi-Fi, sitting and reading a periodical, seeking shelter from the elements, attending a program, etc. If we use the percentage increase in attendance that libraries experienced during the Great Recession to project a possible increase in attendance for the future, that number goes up to 91,983 over the course of a year. This is a potential annual increase of 22,512 library visitors each year.

What does this look like in terms of library service?

The average total of 69,471 visitors per year that libraries have most recently welcomed, works out to 190 people each day. If we factor in library closures (the same 15 days I used for calculating circs above) that number becomes 198 people visiting a library each day.

When you count the extra 22,512 people that an economic downturn may bring in, that is an extra 64 people per day coming into the library. Almost 92,000 people visiting over the course of a year works out to 252 people visiting the library every day. Again, factoring in time for libraries to be closed, that number increases to 263 people visiting the library over the course of a day, should we end up in a recession.

Are we prepared for that?

In order to answer this question, we need to look at several factors and each library is going to have to ask itself:

Do we have enough staff to accommodate these potential increases?
Will our building’s current condition accommodate the increase in foot traffic?
Is our internet (public computers, Wi-Fi) equipped to handle increased usage?
Do we receive ILL deliveries often enough if our circulation increases?
What infrastructure do we have that might be scalable to accommodate potential increases like this?

All of these questions will have at least one overarching question in common: Will we have the funding to help potentially more people? Every library in MA is different in terms of how well funded it is within its municipality but now may be a good time share this information with your closest library advocates (Trustees, Friends, Foundation members) to give them a framework of possibilities to work from.

In my next post, I’ll start digging into metrics from MA that weren’t considered in Mabe’s study, but we have the data for and can give us further insight into this thought experiment. I will use the same basic logic and framework from Mabe’s study to see what our past may be able to tell us about our future when it comes to funding and staffing.

* DISCLAIMER: This is a thought experiment to hopefully give libraries a framework from which to advocate for themselves using a foundation of past data. I am not a financial analyst, nor do I have any ability to predict the future. I do need to use the data available to me, however; which means I’m limited by what’s available from our library statistics. That data ends (for now) with FY2024 . Because of that, I can only really extrapolate what that might mean in terms of averages for FY2025, 2026 and 2027. This does NOT mean that there is any certainty about whether there will be an economic recession during those years. For more background on what prompted me going down this particular rabbit-hole, please see my previous post.

** Because I only have the information from the previous recession, that is the number I’m using to extrapolate. If we encounter another recession, I fully recognize that the percentage may be different and that using the same number indicates that circumstances will be the same in the future, which is unlikely. But this can give libraries a baseline of something to work with to anticipate change and create a nimble plan of action to adjust based on what actually happens, should a recession occur.

***Again, I’m working with averages here. Some libraries may not need to close for extenuating circumstances at all over the course of a year, some libraries may close more days.

~ Al Hayden, MBLC Library Advisory Specialist

The Future is Unknowable, but the Past Can Help Us Prepare

Welcome back to another edition of Fortifying Your Library! While I remain committed to being a policy nerd and will continue to offer policy-based content that hopefully helps your libraries, there are other ways to fortify your library. I wanted to spend some time addressing a question that has been on my mind for several months and the results of that inquiry. The results of the inquiry, while not particularly surprising, were very informative, nonetheless. And I wanted to share that information with all of you in the hope that you will be able to use it to prepare your library.

The Question

The question I wanted to address was: what happens to public libraries during an economic recession? As you may suspect, what prompted this inquiry was the large quantity of media speculation as to whether or not the US is heading towards a recession. As it turns out, there are no universally agreed upon indicators that can predict an impending recession. The definition of an economic recession comes from the independently run National Bureau of Economic Research‘s Business Cycle Dating Committee, but they only define it once data has come through that shows that the US has met those markers for a specific period of time (i.e. they confirm the country is in a recession once a recession has already begun). Which confirms that we cannot know what the future holds. That said, the media talk of the possibility of an impending economic recession is still out there. If that happens, the lack of available funds can strain budgets and libraries should have a strategy of what to do in that case, whether the potential for a recession is weeks or years away.

Libraries and the Great Recession – The Data

We can’t predict the future, but we can look at trends from the past. Fortunately, there’s a peer-reviewed study on that! In 2023 Public Library Quarterly published an article by Michael R. Mabe titled, Impact of Great Recession on Library Use: Does a Negative Economy Impact Library Use? Mabe discovered that public library usage and circulation both increased by a statistically significant amount when the economy turns downward. I highly recommend reading the study in its entirety, as it provides background for the anecdotal evidence that has been a part of library lore for decades that prompted his inquiry in the first place and it describes how he arrived at his conclusions. But for context, here are the key takeaways that were most relevant to answer my question:

The study demonstrates that library usage increased in a statistically significant way during the Great Recession when compared to the years leading up to the Great Recession
Circulation increased 13.3% on average, nationally
Library attendance increased 26.8% on average, nationally
Public use of the library increased regardless of whether the library received proportional budgetary support

What about Massachusetts?

Mabe used national data to arrive at his conclusions, but we here in MA are lucky to have statistics that every library reports annually: ARIS (Annual Report Information Survey). Many thanks to all of you who have gone through the process of collecting and submitting these statistics. Much of the information I collected to replicate Mabe’s findings were from the ARIS. I used Mabe’s definitions of pre-recession and Great Recession, which is a pretty narrow scope. One could easily make an argument that the economic effects of the Great Recession lasted beyond 2011 and we could certainly get a fuller pre-recession picture looking back a bit further. However, to keep the parallels between my inquiry and the study’s statistically significant data, I’ve stuck to his definitions to make the best apples-to-apples comparison possible. Therefore, pre-recession is defined as the years 2006, 2007, and 2008; Great Recession is defined as the years 2009, 2010, and 2011. Yes, we do have MA library data going back to 2006! You can find all of the ARIS reports and data spreadsheets on the MBLC’s Library Statistics page. I compiled the statewide average for each year listed for each metric (circulation, attendance), then I (or, more accurately, the spreadsheet) calculated the average of the 3 pre-recession years and the 3 Great Recession years.

Here’s what I found out about Massachusetts:

There were generally about 370 libraries that submit the ARIS, so for each metric, I had about 370 data points to work with. Our usage pre- and during the Great Recession did, indeed increase over those times.

For the 3 pre-recession years, MA libraries averaged 156,815 total circulation (this includes circulations direct from each library AND inter-library loans [ILLs]) and had an average of 81,872 visitors each year.
For the 3 Great Recession years, MA Libraries averaged 176,475 total circulation (direct and ILL) and had an average of 108,403 visitors each year.

Which means that in Massachusetts libraries:

Circulation increased 12.5% during the Great Recession
Attendance increased 32.4% during the Great Recession

By comparison, these numbers are pretty close to the national average of 13.3% increase in circulation and 26.8% increase in attendance that Mabe found in his study.

What does this mean?

My conclusion from this MA-specific information is that I’m comfortable enough with the proximity of our data to the national data that I would consider* this information statistically significant as well. Which also means that we now have data to indicate that in a time of economic downturn, MA residents relied more on their libraries.

I also looked at one of the other points that Mabe took into consideration about library usage, which was not related to the budgetary support the library received. You can find the data I used for MA by using the municipal pie. Library funding increased between pre- and Great Recession by 4.37%. This percentage is clearly not equivalent to the increases MA libraries saw in usage. Another interesting point that came out of the municipal pie was that pre-recession, the percentage of their municipality’s General Fund that went to libraries averaged 1.30%. The average percentage of the General Fund that went to libraries during the Great Recession was 1.28%, so while libraries got a modest increase in funding from their municipalities in terms of dollar amounts, they did not get as high a percentage of the overall funds available from their municipality during the economic downturn, despite library usage increasing.

Great? Now what?

While the future is still unknowable, we can look back to where we’ve been, and where we’ve been is an increase in library usage when the economy declines. Whether or not we are immediately headed for another recession, I’d like to posit that we can extrapolate our numbers of the past and see what the potential could be for future library usage if patterns stay the same. Which is precisely what I’ll be exploring in my next post…

* For clarity, the years I define for MA are fiscal years because that is how our data is collected. Mabe did not specify whether or not he was using fiscal years for his study.

** Full disclosure, anything I may have learned in my college statistics classes promptly fell out of my head the moment I finished the finals.

~ Al Hayden, MBLC Library Advisory Specialist

Public Comment Policy

If your Library Board is considered a public body, you are obligated to follow Open Meeting Laws (OML) to keep Board proceedings as transparent as possible. If your Library Board is running as the Board of a nonprofit or association library, you are not officially obligated to follow OML. However, to maintain your status as a certified public library in the Commonwealth, you will likely be funded at least in part by municipal funds (usually, though not exclusively in the form of staff salaries, benefits, etc.). Best practices suggest that even though you are not compelled by the state to follow Open Meeting Law, you still should consider doing so. Because you are using some tax dollars as part of your library budget and, as you’ve heard me mention, libraries should always show that they are good stewards of tax dollars and following open meeting laws keeps up transparency to demonstrate that.

Some boards, particularly those who are not obligated to follow OML, tend to be conflicted about allowing public commentary during their meetings. While many Board meetings are run without incident, even when public commentary is invited, contentious meetings often get a lot of publicity and have even been the subject of lawsuits. Understandably, this can make any board reluctant to keep public commentary as part of their meeting, but Boards can adopt a policy that, if followed precisely each meeting, can keep meetings running smoothly with minimal incidents.

Public Commentary

Public commentary is a period during an open meeting where the Board welcomes members of the audience (virtually or in person) to express their opinions about a matter that is relevant to the Board. There is no law that requires public meetings to have a public comment period. However, having a public comment period is generally considered best practice. Including one in your meeting agenda indicates to the public that your Board welcomes feedback from the community that your library serves. You create trust between the community and the Board when you demonstrate that you are open to hearing opinions that you may not have previously considered in your deliberations.

Setting Boundaries

If you decide that you want to welcome public participation in your meetings, you’ll need to set boundaries and stick to them. This lets the public have reasonable expectations when they come to participate and are clear about your expectations regarding their input. And, as we’ve discussed, setting expectations and boundaries are one of the ways in which policies can be most effective. I recommend looking at other policies in neighboring libraries and libraries of similar sizes and seeing what they are doing. This doesn’t mean that you need to mimic their policies, but having a sense of the “norms” around you can inform your decision so you can balance both the Board’s needs and what your community may be expecting. Here are some boundaries you may want to consider setting:

Time limit for total commentary – Public comments do not have to dominate your entire meeting, especially since inviting them is a courtesy and not a requirement. You are well within your rights to set a total amount of time in which people who would like to make comments are allowed to do so.
Time limit for individual commentary – Just like the comments do not need to be the focus of your meeting, one person’s perspective doesn’t need to be the focus of the public comments. If you are putting a limit on the total time during which the public can comment, you may want to also put a limit on the amount of time one person can speak as well. Balancing this can be tricky; you want to ensure that a person speaking has enough time to clearly state what they came to say while also discouraging rambling or repetition and ensuring that you can fit as many people into the allotted public comment time as possible.
Advance requests – Some Boards will not consider public commentary unless they have been notified in advance. Largely this is to enable the Board to acknowledge those who wish to comment by their name and so names may be entered into the record. How far in advance your Board requires notification that someone would like to speak is up to the Board. Some Boards require 24-hour notification in order to get on the list of Public Comment speakers. Others have a sign-up sheet at the meeting where community members can list their names when they arrive. If this is something you plan to require, you should take steps to ensure that you are not excluding any groups of people. For example, if you have a hybrid meeting, but are only allowing public commentary via an at-meeting signup sheet, this can exclude anyone participating remotely. Ensure that there are equitable means for someone to request to make a comment. Otherwise, you are not truly getting your community’s perspective.
Termination of time – You will also want to set an expectation of when the Board will consider someone Out of Order. Generally speaking, any true threat of violence, inciting imminent lawless conduct, or being physically disruptive or threatening are reasonably considered actions in which a person can be called Out of Order. If you wish to put additional limitations on your public comments, I strongly recommend consulting your municipal counsel or an attorney on the Board to ensure that any limitations you place can be upheld by law. How your Board wishes to handle someone becoming Out of Order is also up to you, but many Boards will terminate the remainder of that person’s speaking time and/or ask that person to leave. *

Not a dialogue

While your Board may be meeting in view of the public, your Board meeting is not a meeting of the public. The Board is there to discuss their business in an open forum, not create a back-and-forth on that business in the moment. Public comment is an opportunity for your library’s community to provide input on a library’s policy or other decision within the Board’s purview, and for the span of time that the commentary period runs, this input goes one-way. During the public comment period, the job of the Board Chair (or designee) is to ensure that any participants in public comment are following the rules, but otherwise the chair should remain silent. If you’ve established that you want public commentary as a part of your meetings and someone (or multiple people) have taken the effort to attend the meeting and prepare their statement, as a Board, you need to ensure that you are following through on your end of the bargain and listening to what they have to say.

You are also within your rights to state in your policy, if you so choose, that you will not engage in dialogue. Some examples of this may include:

Public comments shall be confined to subject matters within your library’s jurisdiction, an item on the current agenda and/or an item that has appeared on an agenda over the last 60 days
Board members will listen to remarks, but will not engage in discussion, answer questions, or debate with a speaker
Board members may decide to address the matter with a vote by adding the matter to a future agenda with expected public notice

Many library Board members became so because they care about the library and the issues affecting libraries. This motivation can make following the “not a dialogue” part of the procedure particularly difficult to follow. But remember, consistency is one of the key ways a body earns public trust, so it is as important to follow this section of your policy as it is any other portions of the policy that may come more naturally.

Maintaining your authority

To keep public commentary as orderly as possible, the Board should maintain that they are the primary conduits for the meeting. Many Boards reiterate their public comment policy at the beginning of their meeting or at the beginning of the public comment period. This can keep confusion and expressions of “but I didn’t know” at a minimum. You are also well within your rights to mention in your policy any of the following, deciding whether or not they apply to your situation:

Speakers may only speak if they are recognized by the Chair.
Audience members are not permitted to interrupt recognized speakers
Policy may be subject to exception at the discretion of the Board (and/or Library Director if applicable)
Speakers will be recognized/scheduled on a first-come, first-served basis
Speakers may not give their comment time to other speakers to extend an individual’s time to comment

By and large it is the Board Chair, or presiding officer in the Chair’s absence, that will make these determinations and follow through on most of this policy. However, all members of the Board should be fully up to date on the current public comment policy, so as not to subvert the authority of the Chair or the Board and maintain consistency with the public’s expectations.

While the Board’s authority should be made apparent whenever possible, it is neither productive nor trust-building to be abrupt, curt or visibly irritated during the public comment period. The Chair and other Board members should be dispassionate and polite. Thanking the commenter for their time and opinion can go a long way to establishing a good relationship, even if the board and that commenter happen to disagree. Remember that there is a level of vulnerability to making a public comment and commenters may be inexperienced with the forum. Treating everyone well increases the comfort level of those participating in their local government, which can, in turn, encourage more participation. Being understanding adds a layer of trust which can maintain civility in future interactions, even when the subject matter is something that is subject to strong opinions.

Other channels for public feedback

A public comment period does not need to be the only way in which the public can interact with or express their opinions to a Board. The Board should have other methods that give members of the public the option to communicate with them, especially if they are elected to the Board. Not everyone is comfortable speaking in public for a variety of reasons, so there should be at least ways for the public to contact the Trustees via mail and/or emails. Many libraries are the official mailing address for the Board with any mail coming in given to the chair (or presiding officer) by the Library Director (or designee in the Director’s absence). Trustees may choose to have email addresses that are made available to the public, but they may also choose to have a single email address that is regularly checked and that anyone in the public can send correspondence to (ex. LibraryTrustees@emailsource.com). These should also be acknowledged at a meeting, though they are not part of the public comment period and do not need to be read aloud during the meeting. This is another way the Board shows their community that they are responsive to their needs and can build trust not just in the Board, but in the library overall.

As I’ve stated before, policies are at their best when they set clear expectations and follow through with those expectations at every meeting. This level of consistency and clarity builds public trust and ensures that everyone is treated fairly. Public commentary in particular can be a touchy subject, but having this policy in place encourages people to be respectful and understand their limits before choosing to participate in a meeting.

*Before setting any of the particular boundaries, I strongly recommend reading a summary of Barron Vs Kolenda (this one from the Boston Bar Association is a helpful summary though other reliable ones are available) and, as always, conferring with your municipal counsel to ensure that any limitations you set, actions you choose to take, or boundaries you enforce can be upheld by the law.

Meeting Room Use Agreements

Last week I discussed meeting room policies and many of the possible considerations you might want to undertake if your library offers meeting room space to the public. What should be kept in mind, however, is that, unlike with a library program, you have little control over the content of the meeting beyond what is outlined in your policy. Because of this, it can be extremely helpful to have something in writing that the patron/group that is booking the room fully understands their responsibilities to the library in order to use that room. A meeting room use agreement can serve this purpose. It can also provide a record that a user has fully read and agreed to abide by your policy and gives you the opportunity to request more information or review any expectations that may have been overlooked, usually in the form of missed or partially answered question(s) on the agreement form. If you decide to have a meeting room agreement as part of the process for reserving and using a room in your library, here are some things you may want to consider:

Policies are generally at their best when they encourage accountability on both the patron’s side and the library’s side.

Format

If you decide to require patrons who want to use your meeting room to fill out an agreement form, you’ll first want to decide what format you prefer for the agreement: digitally, in writing and/or in person. Online forms have the benefit of requiring answers to all the questions you consider to be most important, including a question that requires the requester to acknowledge that they have read your policy in full and agree to abide by it. The downside to a digital form is you won’t get a “wet” signature, so you may want to check with your town counsel as to whether requiring a statement such as “by writing my name below I agree on behalf of myself and my organization…” counts as a binding agreement. You will also want to consider those who have limited or no digital access and make sure you have printed copies of any digital form available for patrons to use as a substitute. Asking for something in writing means there will be a legal “wet” signature, but there is less oversight, and you may need to go back and forth with the applicant to cover any important questions that they missed, which can be time-consuming. This can be rectified by requiring the applicant to sign in person, but that can be a barrier to access if the person needing to fill out the agreement has trouble physically coming to the library. For many libraries, a digital agreement offers the best combination of access and accountability, but you’ll want to ensure that you’ve considered your options and decide on the one that best suits your needs and those of your community.

Sponsors & Contacts

Many libraries ask that any group using the room either be based in the community the library serves or have a community member as a sponsor. One of the benefits to this requirement is the library is able to ensure that they are, again, being good steward of tax dollars. By offering the room for community use, particularly if the room is offered free of charge* you are ensuring that the benefit of room use is staying within your library’s community. If this is a requirement you outline in your policy, you may want to ensure that your agreement not only has the information for the community member sponsoring the group, but also the primary contact information for the person running the meeting. In many instances, these may be the same person, but in the event the sponsor does not plan on attending, you will need contact information for a person responsible for the meeting in the event the library closes unexpectedly (inclement weather, power outages, etc.), the room is needed for in-library use, or other unexpected circumstances that make the room unavailable at any previously agreed-upon date and time.

Defining expiration

I mentioned in my last post that many libraries restrict the number of times a group or organization can use the library’s meeting room over the course of a year, to allow for more equitable access to the entire community. If this is something you are going require of the group, you’ll likely want to have a way to keep groups accountable to this and to other limitations that may appear in your policy. You’ll also want to allow yourself a bit of flexibility to update your meeting room policy as necessary, which means notifying anyone who has agreed to your policy that the terms have changed. In addition to keeping records of this (another benefit to using a digital form that will drop all the information into a spreadsheet), you may want to consider a time limit on the agreement itself. In other words, you may want to request that anyone requesting the use of your meeting room will need to sign a new agreement every year (or two, etc.). You can do this on a rolling basis (i.e. the agreement is “good” for 12 months after it has been signed, submitted and approved) which will give the requester the most time to take advantage of the room, but it will require you to check every month to see whose agreement may be expiring. Or you may want to consider a hard deadline for a new agreement. The requester may only get a couple of months’ “use” out of the room before they need to sign a new agreement, but you’ll only have one month when you’ll need to contact those whose agreement is expiring.

If you decide to follow the hard-deadline route, you’ll want to make a couple of things clear to minimize confusion when someone uses the room. You’ll want to decide on a date that is effective every year (or whatever time span you decide works best for you) and follow through when that date rolls around. For some, a calendar year may work best, meaning groups or individuals wanting to use the room will have to sign a new agreement every January 1st. For some libraries it may make sense for a fiscal year date (new agreement every July 1st). Whatever date you decide, make sure that date is clearly communicated in your policy, in any preamble you have to your agreement form and that you also clearly state that the agreement on file must be current in order for rooms to be booked.

Responding

If you are going to commit to holding people accountable for the use of the meeting room and following the policy that you’ve outlined, it’s only fair for you to be accountable in the timeliness of responding to their request. If you are using an agreement, prior to permitting any meeting room use, it will be helpful to the requester to give a minimum time frame for submitting the agreement. Do your best to accommodate the requesting person/organization, but make sure you give a minimum timeline that is also realistic for you to consistently complete or even ahead of the deadline. For example, you may want someone submitting an agreement no fewer than 14 days** in advance of their event. To communicate that you take their submission and your accountability seriously, you may want to consider indicating a response timeline; for example, “After submission, requesters can expect a response within 5 days.” If this is something you choose to do, you’ll want to make sure this is a timeline that, even under strenuous circumstances, is achievable for you. If you are usually able to get back to someone with approval or a request for more information in a day or two, it’s perfectly OK to build a buffer of an extra couple of days into your response timeline for those times when staffing is tight, reporting deadlines are looming, or unexpected circumstances pop up.

Speaking of tight staffing conditions, I recommend choosing someone to take care of keeping track of meeting room agreements and booking meeting rooms should you be unable to attend to request for any period of time (vacation, sick leave, conferences, etc.). For Directors, this is usually an Assistant Director or Head of Reference or similar position. If your library has limited staffing to begin with and you perhaps are only open a few days a week, you may want to consider having a chain-of-command type of responsibility matrix with 2 or 3 people who will be able to take over if you and your designated backup be unable to attend to responses for a period of time.

Policies are generally at their best when they encourage accountability on both the patron’s side and the library’s side. This way, all expectations are clearly laid out and each party involved knows what to expect from the other. This is particularly important with meeting room policies and any accompanying agreements you may use. Unlike a library-run program or general behavioral policies, libraries rarely have sufficient staffing to check in when an outside group is using the meeting room. In the best of circumstances, expectations have not only been clearly laid out but have also been fully met. Should that not happen and, for example, the meeting room’s condition after it’s been used doesn’t meet your expectations or you receive patron complaints, you are likely to find out after the meeting has ended, sometimes not until a day or more after the event. Ensuring that you have someone who is responsible for following through on the policy and knowing that the person (be they a sponsor or the person running the meeting) was fully apprised of your policy (and therefore, your expectations) before that meeting took place, eases the burden on your staff to monitor the meeting and give you recourse and a contact person to review the expectations and what was or was not met.

*Many libraries provide the use of their meeting rooms free of charge to the community. There are others who offer use of the meeting room for a nominal charge. Reasons and conditions under which a library will charge for meeting room use vary, but make sure your Trustees review their bylaws and any documentation surrounding any trusts that may have established the library before considering a charge for any kind of room use.

** Providing a number of days tends to be a clearer way to express deadlines. If you were to request a minimum timeline of 2 weeks, for example, it leaves room for possible confusion: did you mean from the day the agreement was submitted (which could be any day of the week)? Did you mean from beginning of the week it was submitted? What do you consider the beginning of the week: Sunday or Monday? If your library isn’t open daily, you may want to clarify “business days” or “calendar days” to ensure your expectations are clear to the person submitting the agreement.

Policy: Meeting Room Use

If your library offers space that outside groups are permitted to use (either for free or as a rental), it’s extremely important that you have a solid, actionable meeting room policy and regularly communicate the requirements of that policy, even with the regular users. Though you are under no obligation to do so, welcoming the public to use a space within the library can be a valuable community asset, providing an opportunity that may otherwise be inaccessible to bring people together for a common goal.

The safety of your staff, yourself, your community and your spaces depends upon a policy that sets clear expectations and guidelines that fit within the constraints of the library’s regular responsibilities. There are a few additional benefits to having a solid, actionable meeting room policy that is regularly reviewed including:

Guidance for those unfamiliar with your policy to understand whether or not your meeting space is a good fit for their purposes, or if you will be able to accommodate them at all (ex. expected group size may exceed room capacity)
Familiarity with your own policy minimizes the amount of time spent reviewing the policy if someone contacts you with questions
Policy that explains your requirements clearly will save time for you and those wanting to use the room

When you start to review this particular policy, there are a few items that are somewhat idiosyncratic to this particular type of policy.

Before I begin, a quick disclaimer: many of the recommendations for meeting rooms have been determined through court cases. This information is publicly available should you wish to dig deeper. You can find some starter information here. However, I am not a lawyer. I have no intention of interpreting these cases for you nor should the information I’m passing along be considered legal advice. As I’ve mentioned before, any policy that you consider ratifying through your Board of Trustees should be reviewed by an attorney (counsel for your municipality is usually a good place to start) to ensure that you are compliant with the most current decisions and are protecting yourself and your library.

Limited Public Forum

If your library opens your meeting room to outside groups, it will likely be considered a limited public forum. This means anyone using your room must abide by open meeting laws. If a group is using the room, anyone walking by has the right to sit in on their meetings, which should be open-door at all times. Staff have the right to sit in and ensure policies are being followed. This should be clearly spelled out so that the group understands the possibility, however unlikely, that someone will wander in, sit down and listen in.

Equitable Use

Article VI of the Library Bill of Rights states, “Libraries which make… meeting rooms available to the public they serve should make such facilities available on an equitable basis, regardless of the beliefs or affiliations of individuals or groups requesting their use.” Provided they agree to all of the terms and conditions in your meeting room policy, a group that may be personally disagreeable to you or your staff likely has the right to use the room. For example, they may have said that meetings of a political nature were not permitted in the library’s meeting room, regardless of the alignment of the politics being discussed. This seems neutral on its surface (the library isn’t allowing ANY type of politics in its meeting room, not just politics with views that may be disagreeable or controversial), but the courts have found that the argument doesn’t really hold in practice.

If you are going to limit use of your library’s meeting room, it must be done based on “reasonable content-neutral time, place or manner restrictions” (Pfeifer v. City of West Allis, 91 F. Supp. 2d 1253 [E.D. Wis. 2000]). If you’ve been to one of the webinars that the MBLC, MMA or several other organizations have hosted on this and similar subjects, you’ll have heard this phrase. While this limits the library’s in ~~it’s~~ ability to limit users of your public meeting room space, that does not mean that you need to endorse the use.

Endorsement Not Required

If an outside group books a meeting room for any purpose that is permitted by your library policy, that does NOT mean that it is a library program. You are within your rights to have your policy clearly state that use of your meeting room facilities does not imply endorsement by the library. The ALA has the suggested wording: “Libraries do not advocate for or endorse the viewpoints expressed in meetings by meeting room users, just as they do not endorse the viewpoints of works in their collections,” but you can decide the most effective way to express this. You may also want to consider making it clear to anyone wishing to use your meeting room facilities that the library may NOT be listed as anything but a location for that particular meeting. Library staff should NOT be collecting registrations or answering questions for any outside group. You are under no obligation to post an outside program on your public calendar. If your calendar program has a private staff view, you can keep your staff informed to make the appropriate arrangements in the room being used, and you can state very clearly on the event post that this is not a library-affiliated program and the library does not endorse the program in any way. If that’s the case, remember that this disclaimer must be used for every program regardless of whether or not it’s a program that the library may consider booking as a library program at a later time. Be upfront with those viewing your calendar and follow through on your policy which has made promises to the meeting room user for every booking.

Usage

You are well within your rights to :

reserve meeting space for library use first
reschedule, cancel, or change a meeting if you need to use that room for a library program or special event. From a public service standpoint, a library should do its best to accommodate a new option for someone booking the room for a conflicting date, but that doesn’t mean that once a group has booked a room, you are prevented from having your own library event or offering services in that room if it’s necessary for essential library functions.
define how much any one organization or individual may use a room in a 12-month period, and how far in advanced a room may be reserved

This ensures that the room is available for use to your entire community without any groups monopolizing its use. You can look at the meeting room policies in your area and/or libraries that are similar to you in size, staffing, and meeting room usage. I’ve seen several policies that restrict to 1x/month, no more than 12 uses per calendar year, and no bookings more than 3 months in advance. Ultimately, you know how much your community requests the use of your meeting rooms so it will be up to you what limits are reasonable and will not create an undue burden on your facilities and staff.

You are under no obligation to offer use beyond the space itself. For example, if your meeting room has AV equipment or other technology, art installation options, unusual furnishings (beyond what someone might reasonably expect in terms of a table and chairs), you can make it clear in your policy that these amenities are for library use only and outside users are permitted to use the space, not the equipment.

If you decide to offer the use of certain equipment in the meeting space, make sure you’ve fully considered and outlined in your policy what is and is not available. If tech is available, will you require them to use their own cables, or replace any cables, dongles, or attachments that may be unaccounted for after the meeting? Will you request that your custodians or other library staff set up the room to the group’s specifications, or will you require that, if the group needs to arrange the furniture to suit their needs, that they also return the room to its original configuration? As always, you know your patrons and your community best and you can determine the best ways to accommodate them without placing an undue burden on your staff or your facilities.

You are well within your rights to consider these questions, balancing the needs of the community and the needs of the library. Don’t forget that the needs of the community include the members who do not need or choose not to use your meeting room and how they may be affected and, most importantly don’t forget to factor in the needs of your staff. Once you’ve decided, make sure you outline those determinations in your policy so that everyone has clear expectations and knows exactly what will happen when the meeting room is booked for outside use.

Just like there is more than 1 facet to patron rights and responsibilities and collection development policies, meeting room policies are similar in this regard. Next week, I’ll go in the to agreement and accountability side of meeting room policies. I hope you’ll join me!

How much do book challenges cost?🏷️💲

In a previous post, I stressed the importance of laying out requirements for Requests for Reconsideration (RfRs). RfRs take extensive time and effort which end up costing the library in time, effort and taxpayer dollars that are taken away from doing another part of library work for your community. Let’s explore this in a bit more detail. I’ve discussed how professional librarians are tasked with being good stewards of taxpayer dollars. This is because libraries are, by and large, municipal departments. The largest portion of funds from municipal budgets generally go towards staff salaries. Remaining municipal funds, plus funds from state aid, and donations from Friends groups or Foundations are often applied towards programs that move the library’s community forward in areas such as (but definitely not limited to):

digital literacy and bridging the digital divide
helping skilled workers enter the job pipeline
aiding budding entrepreneurs
guiding new Americans to become valuable citizens in our society
offering early literacy guidance to families
preparing children for kindergarten readiness
supporting K-12 students by partnering with schools
safeguarding patron privacy

These are the types of regular duties that professional and paraprofessional library staff are spending their time on, in addition to the more visible services of ensuring access to information, including your library holds. Libraries are offering essential services to their communities at no cost to individual patrons, making the most of every penny a municipality invests in them. * Any time spent by staff members at any level that are outside the regular duties I’ve described can put a strain on already limited time and budgets. **

️🔢 Let’s compile some numbers

When a book, program, display or other library service is challenged, much of what I described above gets put on hold to address the concern(s) brought to the library. The cost of these challenges is not often discussed, so finding data points such as the average cost of a single challenge, or how much a state spends on book challenges over the course of a year are difficult to find and even more difficult to standardize. Many don’t realize that book (or display, or program) challenges are a very real strain on taxpayer funds. Costs vary between states and municipalities based on staff salaries and more. Much of the data gathered about the cost of book challenges is from schools and indicates that schools across the US have spent more than $3 billion each year on investigating book challenges. There is less data on how much public library challenges cost. However, the MBLC collects data that all certified public libraries report annually through ARIS and in recent years we’ve included statistics on formal RfRs or intellectual freedom challenges.***

For our current purposes, we can calculate the cost of book challenges for fiscal year 2023 in Massachusetts’s public libraries based on the data we already routinely collect:

The average hourly wage of a professional (i.e. MLIS holding) librarian in MA is $33.56/hr.
I will also use this wage ($33.56) the professional librarian salary for library Administration but please keep in mind:

Library Administration (Directors and Assistant Directors) earn higher salaries than the average professional librarian, but the difference between administrative and professional salaries varies widely across municipalities.
Not every library has an Assistant Director (or equivalent)
This makes any result from these calculations VERY conservative.

There were 40 unique challenges to materials, services or programs in MA in FY24.

🔎 What really goes into a Request for Reconsideration?

How long does a reconsideration process take once a formal request for reconsideration (RfR) has been activated? This will vary by library, but using the guidelines outlined in my previous blog post and figures based on request for reconsideration procedures already in place at some public libraries, here is an approximation of the time investment for each step of the process:

Steps of the RfR Process	Approximate time invested
A Library Director, upon receiving a challenge, will usually spend some time researching the material being challenged, the reviews of the material and the library’s collection development policy	1 HOUR
Provided the library has a large enough staff, the Director will assemble a review committee of about 3 professional librarians who will research the material in question and its reviews along with the challenger’s complaint, and discuss a course of action based on the collection development policy	3 staff members, each investing about 3 hours = 9 HOURS
The Director will inform the staff member who ordered the book about the challenge. The Director will also inform the Chair of the Board of Library Trustees, ensuring the Board is aware that the issue is being handled according to policy. This also ensures Board has some background information should the complainant wish to appeal the library’s decision to the Trustees.	1 HOUR
The review committee will meet with the Library Director and inform the Director of their decision, including reasoning	1HOUR
The Director will compose a response based on the committee findings, informing the person who put forth the request of the library’s decision	1 HOUR
	This totals approximately 13 hours of senior/administrative staff time. Multiplying the total staff time spent (13 hours) by the average hourly wage ($33.56) , the cost to the challenge 1 book in Massachusetts is $436.28, at a minimum. (13 x $33.56 = $436.28)

For the 40 challenges MA libraries received in FY2024, the cost was more than $17,415 in taxpayer dollars and more than 520 hours of senior/administrative staff time devoted to book challenges. The process is very similar for a challenge to a program or service. ****

One more note about the factors in the above calculations. They only take into account senior staff and admin time, but the time, energy, and efforts for reconsideration taken on by professional staff not directly involved in a challenge (ex. the staff member who ordered the challenged item) or paraprofessional staff who are often the ones at the front desk fielding the initial complaint should not be underestimated. They are not included in these calculations because the costs are very difficult to standardize in terms of both wages and time spent with someone submitting a complaint. But never forget that it is generally the staff on the frontlines that are getting the unfiltered initial complaints that are often emotionally charged.

Which leads me to one, final note about the costs of requests for reconsideration. There is an incalculable emotional cost at every level of these challenges. Even under the best of circumstances, if someone is moved enough to go through the process to formally challenge something in the library, they feel very strongly about their position. How members of the public express their concern varies widely, but no matter how much experience a staff member has in libraries, or how many years they have been working at public service points, the underlying emotional tension associated with a challenge is high. It is most important for everyone to keep in mind that library workers – at all levels – are people first; they are more than the items they order or the programs they put on or the desks that they work. They are professionals and paraprofessionals who feel strongly about doing the best for their community. It will vary widely from person to person, but when the public calls into question the dedication of library workers to the library’s mission, the emotional cost is immeasurable.

* Last week’s blog post “Calculating and Communicating Your ROI” details how valuable these services are in terms of municipal return on investment (ROI), and you can check out different library value calculators to determine your library’s ROI.

** In Massachusetts’s fiscal year 2024, the total percentage of the state’s general fund that was invested into libraries totalled 1.09%. To find out what percent of its budget your municipality invests in libraries, and to see how that percentage compares to the state’s investment, take a look at your municipal pie.

*** We also collect data on informal challenges (complaints, turning books spine-in, relocating a book without staff knowledge, etc. but without taking the step of filing an RfR) which are also a strain on time and budgets, but those are much more difficult to calibrate.

**** While the above description applies to the procedures when a program is challenged, there is often an extensive increase in security, sometimes with the use of both municipal police and private security. This also incurs costs paid for by taxpayer dollars.

Special Edition: Calculating and Communicating Your ROI

We interrupt your regularly scheduled, policy-centered fortification with a practical guide on determining just how much value your library contributes to your community. Welcome to ROI 101: Your library’s return on community investment. In this Fortifying Friday post, I’ll be showing you some tools that can help you calculate the value of your services to your community and the return on investment those services bring for every tax dollar that’s invested in your library. I’ll also give you some suggestions on how to frame those numbers in a way that can be meaningful to those who are making decisions about library funding.

Return on Investment

A return on investment (ROI) is generally a metric that’s used in the business world to calculate how much profit was gained from an investment. As a government service, public libraries obviously don’t turn a profit, nor are they meant to. But that doesn’t mean that libraries don’t add immense value to their communities. While some of that value will always be incalculable (who can quantify the positive feelings or nostalgia someone feels in a library?), there are some very concrete ways to quantify what a library offers its users and non-users alike. Enter the ROI.

Most public libraries in Massachusetts are funded by a combination of municipal, state and some federal tax dollars. Though some are also privately funded as independent 501(c)3 organizations, they still receive enough municipal appropriations to obtain state certification and state aid. For our purposes, we will be looking at the return on investment for the municipal tax dollars, i.e. what the city or town spends on its public library, as these are generally the largest part of a library’s budget and are the funds most likely to be applied to the most common library services. The library’s municipal officials (town management, select board, city council, etc.) are also likely to be familiar with an ROI figure as an understandable and relatable metric.

There’s a Calculator for That

How does a library start calculating its ROI? Fortunately, the Maine State Library* still posts a ROI calculator that was developed by MLA and the Chelmford Library’s Brain Herzog. So what’s left for you to do is obtain the correct statistics to plug into that tool. Those statistics they’re asking for? You already have them. Your ARIS statistics that you submit to the MBLC every August have the numbers you need. Click “calculate” and you’ll have a number.

Don’t get too excited (yet). The number you get from the calculator isn’t your ROI. That number is the dollar amount of what your services would cost the average person if they were paying for them out of pocket. The next number you need is your municipal appropriation, which you can also easily get. While you may have this number in your budget files and in your financial reporting that you submit to the MBLC in October, you can also get it in relation to the budget of the other departments in your municipality.

Have a Slice of Municipal Pie

As a self-admitted data nerd, this is quite possibly one of the most underrated library tools out there (the CensusData tool runs a close second). Allow me to introduce you to the municipal pie. This link will take you to the MA Department of Revenue’s site that lists and charts every MA municipality’s budget info and breaks it down by department. Here is where you see your total municipal budget appropriation and where your budget falls in relation to other departments in your city or town. Here’s how you get there:

Find your municipality from the drop-down.

ALT TEXT

Screenshot of detail of website with Division of Local Services: MA Department of Revenue logo indicating the content of “Schedule A General Fund and Library Expense Prepared for the Board of Library Commissioners” with a drop-down menu asking to “Select Municipalities” and listing the name of MA municipalities with a selectable check box next to each option

Choose the fiscal year you want to see. (For ROI purposes, it’s best to use the most recent, but you can also compare to previous years for other interesting information.)

ALT TEXT

Screenshot of detail of website with Division of Local Services: MA Department of Revenue logo indicating the content of “Schedule A General Fund and Library Expense Prepared for the Board of Library Commissioners” with a drop-down menu asking to “Select Fiscal Years” and listing years from 2024 back to 2003 with a selectable check box next to each option

Click on “Chart Library Expenditures” to see the pie chart breaking the tax dollar budget appropriations for your municipality. For demonstration purposes, this pie chart is for ALL the municipalities in MA. That tiny pie slice is the percent of the budget that all libraries have in the overall budget of Massachusetts. In other words, on average, libraries across the state are 1.1% of the Commonwealth’s budget. How does your municipality compare?**

ALT TEXT

Screenshot of detail of website with Division of Local Services: MA Department of Revenue logo. The selectable option “Chart Library Expenditures” is highlighted.

What’s Your Number?

OK – you have your calculated value and your municipal appropriation. To calculate your return on investment, divide the value determined in the library calculator by your total municipal budget, (calculated value / municipal budget = ROI). This number will very likely be greater than 1. When you multiply this number by 100, you’ll get your ROI percentage. This is a valuable metric that will be understood by a good portion of your community regardless of their connection with the library.

Spread the news!

Your library’s percentage is very likely over 100% and is probably somewhere between 100-1000%. The most important thing you can do now is to put that in context for your community. Here’s an example:

You’ve calculated that your ROI is 430%
What this means: The value of your library’s services is 4.3 times what your municipality invests in your library
Or: For every $1 tax dollar that your municipality invests in your library they get $4.30 back in services that do not cost your community any additional money
To put it another way: You’re offered a savings account where, for every dollar you put into that account you get $4.30 back in interest. (I don’t know a single person who wouldn’t take that deal.) That is essentially what your library is offering where, in this case the interest = services.

One more point you want to stress: those services that are worth 430% MORE than the tax dollars that have been invested to your library do not cost your community any additional money. The people using your services are doing so at no additional cost to them beyond the taxes they have already paid into their community. No one is asking them to pay a fee to take advantage of a staff member’s expertise on safely and critically navigating the internet. No one is charging admission for the early literacy benefits of a story time at the library. Libraries are not charging per hour for after school programs that tutor kids and give them skills to succeed. Most of us know (as I’ve previously mentioned) that if you are considered a municipal employee (and most library workers are; even association libraries usually get their staff salaries from their municipal budget), then you have a responsibility to be good stewards of tax dollars. Your ROI is concrete data offering proof that you are stretching those tax dollars as far as they can go.

Once you have your number and its context, get this information out into your community! Do NOT wait to get this information out there. Your ROI is not an “ace in the hole” number to pull out only during budget negotiations (though it can be helpful to remind your municipality of your ROI during those negotiations). This is a number that everyone who enters the library, uses library services, or has a say in library services should be able to see. Put it on flyers; post it around the library; add it somewhere on your website; send everyone picking up a hold home with a bookmark that tells them just how much their tax dollars are offering them. Update this information every year as your new budget comes through. Most importantly, arm your advocates with this information. The more people in your community who know the value of the services you are offering to your community, the better. I’ve talked before about showing the community you’re a good steward of tax dollars. This is a great way to demonstrate what good stewards you are because you are backing that info with data. You are telling your community: we know how to stretch a dollar and get the most out of the money we’re given. You give us $1 and we will use that dollar to give our community services that are worth multiple times your investment.

*There are other library calculators out there, but the ALA links to the Main State Library one while their tool is, unfortunately, not currently available.

** A note for Association libraries: your “slice” of pie will likely be considerably below the average since your primary sources of income are structured differently than municipal libraries. That doesn’t mean you can’t still get some great data, though!