Saturday, November 1, 2008

Local city, school libraries would benefit from bond

Brent Ruffner News-Bulletin Staff Writer; bruffner@news-bulletin.com

Valencia County voters will help decide the fate of an $11 million statewide initiative Tuesday that would bolster funds for public, school, tribal, and college and university libraries.

If passed, general obligation bond B would allow the state's libraries to purchase new books and other supplemental equipment that would come out of the New Mexico county property tax.

The tax would affect properties assessed at $100,000 or more. Property owners who meet that criteria would be taxed 77 cents each of the next 10 years.

Valencia County's stake would amount to $250,000 and would be divided between the area's seven libraries. The money would likely be available to individual libraries by Sept. 2009.

"This helps us update our library," said Belen High School Librarian Robin Shockley. "We'll take the money whenever we can get it."

But the bond has specific rules in which the money can be spent.

For instance, schools would only be able to purchase books and supplemental items such as reference materials, and not be able to replace existing books. Public libraries would be able to update books, computers and subscriptions to databases.

The amount of funding schools and libraries get is based on enrollment and how many people each library serves.

"Subscription prices are high," said David Giltrow, who is co-chair for Bonds for Libraries. "Some journals are only available in an online form. They don't have the hard copies anymore."

Pam Rishel, the lead librarian for the Los Lunas Schools, told the Los Lunas Board of Education Tuesday that the library bond has benefited both school and municipal libraries over the past six years.

Rishel said that in 2002, 85 percent of math, computer and science books in school libraries were more than 12 years old, a maximum for volumes in those fast-changing categories.

"Books in these categories need to be current," she said.

Belen Library Director Beverly McFarland said the passage of the bond would allow her center to purchase eight new computers as well as update the library's collection of books.

McFarland said computer usage wait times frequently range from 10 minutes to an hour at the center.

"We've come to rely on this funding," McFarland said. "This helps us keep up."

Cynthia Shetter, library director for the Village of Los Lunas, noted to the Los Lunas Board of Education that there are only 91 libraries in the state, 18 percent of them in unincorporated areas in which neither a municipality nor a county helps support them. Many have to rely on fundraisers such as bake sales to support them, she said.

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