With the state library receiving half its expected federal funding, tough budget discussions may be ahead.
Siouxland Libraries, a Sioux Falls-based public library system, says they expect to see some effects.
Though Siouxland Libraries doesn’t receive direct state or federal funding, Executive Director Jodi Fick said it’s going to feel the impact through other programs.
“Some of the things that we provide to our customers are paid for by the state directly. It’s done that way because the state can get pricing that is more beneficial when they’re purchasing, like a database, for every resident in the state,” Fick said. “Or they’re coordinating a courier that goes between our libraries. The pricing is much more economical when you’re buying for 800,000 to 900,000 people than when everyone of our communities works with a vendor separately.”
Fick said she expects databases to be one of the areas affected. Many of the databases the state pays for can be utilized by both schools and by the public libraries in South Dakota.
Fick said one thing people don’t realize is the databases have a lot of impacts on the community and go beyond scholarly research. She gave an example of a student who benefitted from using Ancestry Plus.
“Someone was applying for a scholarship, and if they had the documentation that their grandfather had been in the military, then they would be awarded the scholarship,” Fick said. “Well, [their] grandfather’s no longer around. They went to the database and were able to retrieve that information and it was to their advantage that now they can go to college.”
Fick added that right now, it’s a tossup what ends up on the chopping block.
“We don’t know for sure what the state is going to settle on. They have received half of the federal funding they were expecting, so they will be looking through and determining which databases that they restore based on the needs of the entire state,” Fick said. “My hope is that some of those that are most used here in Sioux Falls will be the ones that are selected. But, I don’t get to make that decision. We give input, and then we trust that the state librarians will make the best decision for us all.”
She said the past few months have had a very “yo-yoing” effect as libraries have been the focus of spending cuts at both the state and federal levels.
