Hanging among the children's books that fill the octagon book shelf in the Weedsport Free Library are green and blue canvas book bags with big white block letters reading "Friends of the Library." Above the bags, a plastic sign indicates the bags are $10 each.
Book bag and book sales are just a few of the projects being done to help support the small brick library on Brutus Street. Just last week, the library set up a brick garden, which gives residents the opportunity to purchase engraved bricks.
"We needed to begin some sort of an endowment fund," library director Cheryl Austin said. "We need to consider the future security of the library."
With costs like health care running high and money running low, the Weedsport Library is just one of the many throughout the state worried about their future. And with towns and municipalities fighting to pay their own bills, many leaders are telling the public libraries something has to give.
Increasingly, libraries are turning straight to voters for the money.
In Cayuga County, libraries are making do and most are not in any immediate danger of closing.
But other libraries in upstate New York are not so lucky.
When Richard Russo heard the library in his hometown on the edge of the Adirondacks was in danger, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist's objection wasn't shy.
"It's not my town anymore," he wrote.
"But if it were, and if the decision were mine, I'd let the snow pile up in the streets and the potholes go unfilled. I'd shut every tavern and church in town and bar their doors before I'd allow my library to close."
It was an eloquent note on a financial tug-of-war.
Falling funding is so common nationwide that the American Library Association has created a campaign to save America's libraries. The ALA's database shows funding cuts in almost every state, up to 50 percent in extreme cases, of more than $111 million. But circulation and library visits nationwide continue to climb.
In New York, as in some other states, public library services aren't mandated in the state constitution.
That means libraries are at the bottom of the food chain when cities and counties look at budgets, says Richard Panz, a Rochester-based library consultant working with Gloversville's library.
Gloversville Mayor Frank La Porta is more direct: "Everybody likes to do everything for everybody. But you've got to balance the budget."
The state's Board of Regents has suggested that more of New York's 758 public libraries turn to voters for a more democratic, and possibly more stable, source of money. Asking a school district is another option.
"Right now, we're at the whim of the city government," says Betty Babanoury, the director of the Niagara Falls library.
In June, at least three libraries and library systems across the state will turn to voters for help. In Erie County, libraries hope a $5 million bond issue will help restore cuts this past year in staff (more than 100 people) and services (no more bookmobiles).
Locally libraries like Weedsport, Powers Library in Moravia, Hazard Library in Aurora, the Port Byron Public Library and the Springport Free Library in Union Springs piggyback their referendums on the school districts' budget ballots.
If the referendum is passed by the public, the school district collects the taxes and passes the money on to local libraries, saving the library money and the voters an extra trip to the polls.
"We have a friendly relationship with the library because both of us have same interest," Port Byron Business Administrator Gary Texido said.
"Serving the community and helping the children."
But as some libraries in the state are still waiting for their budget votes, and in the mean time they must cut staff, branches and even books, just as this summer's biggest launch looms - the latest Harry Potter. Upstate's largest library system wants a sympathetic donor to buy 300 Harry Potter books to meet the anticipated July 16 crush.
Already, officials have warned there won't be money to keep all 52 branches open in the county where the budget situation is so dire the state has stepped in, blaming "colossal mismanagement," and suggested a control board take over its finances.
In Gloversville, the library is asking school district voters today to replace the city's annual funding with the approval of $198,000.
The city once gave more than half of the Gloversville library's budget, $155,000, but last year, facing financial problems, it abruptly tried to cut off all money.
But then a city councilman discovered an unusual problem. The city was still under a 100-year agreement with Andrew Carnegie, the turn-of-the-century "richest man in the world" who founded almost 3,000 libraries, including the one in Gloversville. Carnegie also told the city to provide $5,000 a year until 2011.
So last year the city honored the agreement and funded the library - at $5,000.
Of course, $5,000 bought so much more a century ago, says Ellen Wood, a Gloversville library board member and the head of the campaign to win Tuesday's vote.
With its Carnegie exterior, the library still has a grand air of the ideals it was meant to promote - knowledge, charity. But the city around it is fading. A capital of glove-making in Carnegie's time, now Gloversville's downtown blocks have drifted into disuse.
The population has fallen by almost 10,000, from 25,000, since 1950, when the industry declined.
Inside the library, ideals meet reality.
"This year we budgeted nothing, zero, for books," Wood says. "And we're a library." If Tuesday's vote fails, it's possible the library will no longer buy books or stay open more than 20 hours a week.
In Weedsport, the library relies heavily on the Friends of the Library to fund programming, the rest of the budget is a support system made up of funds coming in from the school district tax payers, the town, village, county, and state.
"If we lost our state funding we would be okay, but if we lost the funding from the village or town, that would be a big ouch," Austin said.
"But I do not foresee that happening."
Austin and others at local libraries consider themselves lucky because they are located in such supportive communities. For them, going directly to the public has paid off. And while they may not be rolling in money, they are confident they will get by.
"It is tragic when you hear about a book budget of zero," Austin said. "While losing one of our sources of funding would hurt, it would not be as devastating as it is in other parts of the state."
Staff writer Ashley Lipsky
contributed to this story.
"We needed to begin some sort of an endowment fund," library director Cheryl Austin said. "We need to consider the future security of the library."
With costs like health care running high and money running low, the Weedsport Library is just one of the many throughout the state worried about their future. And with towns and municipalities fighting to pay their own bills, many leaders are telling the public libraries something has to give.
Increasingly, libraries are turning straight to voters for the money.
In Cayuga County, libraries are making do and most are not in any immediate danger of closing.
But other libraries in upstate New York are not so lucky.
When Richard Russo heard the library in his hometown on the edge of the Adirondacks was in danger, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist's objection wasn't shy.
"It's not my town anymore," he wrote.
"But if it were, and if the decision were mine, I'd let the snow pile up in the streets and the potholes go unfilled. I'd shut every tavern and church in town and bar their doors before I'd allow my library to close."
It was an eloquent note on a financial tug-of-war.
Falling funding is so common nationwide that the American Library Association has created a campaign to save America's libraries. The ALA's database shows funding cuts in almost every state, up to 50 percent in extreme cases, of more than $111 million. But circulation and library visits nationwide continue to climb.
In New York, as in some other states, public library services aren't mandated in the state constitution.
That means libraries are at the bottom of the food chain when cities and counties look at budgets, says Richard Panz, a Rochester-based library consultant working with Gloversville's library.
Gloversville Mayor Frank La Porta is more direct: "Everybody likes to do everything for everybody. But you've got to balance the budget."
The state's Board of Regents has suggested that more of New York's 758 public libraries turn to voters for a more democratic, and possibly more stable, source of money. Asking a school district is another option.
"Right now, we're at the whim of the city government," says Betty Babanoury, the director of the Niagara Falls library.
In June, at least three libraries and library systems across the state will turn to voters for help. In Erie County, libraries hope a $5 million bond issue will help restore cuts this past year in staff (more than 100 people) and services (no more bookmobiles).
Locally libraries like Weedsport, Powers Library in Moravia, Hazard Library in Aurora, the Port Byron Public Library and the Springport Free Library in Union Springs piggyback their referendums on the school districts' budget ballots.
If the referendum is passed by the public, the school district collects the taxes and passes the money on to local libraries, saving the library money and the voters an extra trip to the polls.
"We have a friendly relationship with the library because both of us have same interest," Port Byron Business Administrator Gary Texido said.
"Serving the community and helping the children."
But as some libraries in the state are still waiting for their budget votes, and in the mean time they must cut staff, branches and even books, just as this summer's biggest launch looms - the latest Harry Potter. Upstate's largest library system wants a sympathetic donor to buy 300 Harry Potter books to meet the anticipated July 16 crush.
Already, officials have warned there won't be money to keep all 52 branches open in the county where the budget situation is so dire the state has stepped in, blaming "colossal mismanagement," and suggested a control board take over its finances.
In Gloversville, the library is asking school district voters today to replace the city's annual funding with the approval of $198,000.
The city once gave more than half of the Gloversville library's budget, $155,000, but last year, facing financial problems, it abruptly tried to cut off all money.
But then a city councilman discovered an unusual problem. The city was still under a 100-year agreement with Andrew Carnegie, the turn-of-the-century "richest man in the world" who founded almost 3,000 libraries, including the one in Gloversville. Carnegie also told the city to provide $5,000 a year until 2011.
So last year the city honored the agreement and funded the library - at $5,000.
Of course, $5,000 bought so much more a century ago, says Ellen Wood, a Gloversville library board member and the head of the campaign to win Tuesday's vote.
With its Carnegie exterior, the library still has a grand air of the ideals it was meant to promote - knowledge, charity. But the city around it is fading. A capital of glove-making in Carnegie's time, now Gloversville's downtown blocks have drifted into disuse.
The population has fallen by almost 10,000, from 25,000, since 1950, when the industry declined.
Inside the library, ideals meet reality.
"This year we budgeted nothing, zero, for books," Wood says. "And we're a library." If Tuesday's vote fails, it's possible the library will no longer buy books or stay open more than 20 hours a week.
In Weedsport, the library relies heavily on the Friends of the Library to fund programming, the rest of the budget is a support system made up of funds coming in from the school district tax payers, the town, village, county, and state.
"If we lost our state funding we would be okay, but if we lost the funding from the village or town, that would be a big ouch," Austin said.
"But I do not foresee that happening."
Austin and others at local libraries consider themselves lucky because they are located in such supportive communities. For them, going directly to the public has paid off. And while they may not be rolling in money, they are confident they will get by.
"It is tragic when you hear about a book budget of zero," Austin said. "While losing one of our sources of funding would hurt, it would not be as devastating as it is in other parts of the state."
Staff writer Ashley Lipsky
contributed to this story.
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