Library employees take budget matters into their own hands

Date: 3/3/2009

By Katelyn Gendron

Reminder Assistant Editor



WEST SPRINGFIELD -- Employees at the West Springfield Public Library (WSPL) are working to ensure that business continues as usual by taking budget woes into their own hands.

Youth Services Librarians Teresa Mitus and Mia Cabana are applying for numerous grants in order to ensure there is funding for teen programming despite budget cutbacks.

With looming budgets of perhaps a five to eight percent cut we re looking at $40,000 to $80,000 [in] cuts in the [fiscal year 2010] budget and that affects our services and collections, Antonia Golinski-Foisy, library director, said during an interview with Reminder Publications. We know that the town can t appropriate all of the money that the library needs so we re doing our part.

She noted that recent increases in circulation of young adult materials have prompted Mitus and Cabana to look for grant funding. Golinski-Foisy said that over the past year, circulation of young adult graphic novels has increased by 162 percent; circulation of young adult DVDs has increased by 44 percent; and circulation of young adult periodicals has increased 40 percent.

The WSPL is the most recent recipient of the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) grant for Teen Tech Week, March 8 through 14. The library is one of 20 across the country to receive the grant, which encourages the link between the library, young adults and technology.

Cabana explained that the grant will be used to buy a Nintendo Wii game console and an interactive music game in an effort to boost the young adult participation in the library through the Wii Will Rock You at WSPL program.

We hope that our new program, entitled Wii Will Rock You at WSPL will achieve three goals. First, it will bring new patrons and teen interest to the library, she explained. Second, it will build off a music-sharing program initiated by our high school Ruth M. Peck interns to appeal to the way that teens today experience music and technology. Incorporating teens in planning as well as participation is a criterion of the grant.

Finally, it will link WSPL to a national program and further a dialogue among library professionals and patrons on how to best meet the recreational and academic technological needs of our community, Cabana continued. Demonstrating the current use and need for designated teen programming and space in the library will set a precedent not just for this generation of teen patrons, but also for future generations.

Golinski-Foisy said programming such as this will keep young adults interested in the library and continue to increase circulation.

I don t want to lose this new group that has finally come back into the library [because of budget cuts], she said.

Mitus noted that she is working to complete a $20,000 two-year grant proposal for the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) Grant.

She explained that the grant will help to boost readership among young adults in grades five to eight.

These grants are huge [especially] if we want to do anything special for underserved groups such as teens, Mitus said.

Golinski-Foisy noted that over the past five years the WSPL has received approximately $40,000 in LSTA grants and approximately $7,000 in grants from other sources.

Teen Tech Week will take place March 8 through 14. Wii Will Rock You at WSPL will take place March 8 at 6:30 p.m.