Florda library consortia budgets axed
Library Journal reports that Florida Gov. Scott has vetoed the 2012-2013 budget of the Southwest Florida Library Network (SWFLN) — of which Collier County Public Library is a member — and the other four multiple library consortia in Florida.
The elimination of the $1.5 million (of the state’s overall $70 billion budget) would affect key interlibrary loan services, group volume purchasing, and staff training opportunities.
The chief impact would be to interlibrary loan delivery around the state. The present courier service is coordinated by the Tampa Bay Library Consortium, which calculates that the service
saves Florida’s libraries about $750,000 annually, compared with the cost of shipping the same volume of items through the U.S. Postal Service. These savings, alone, would have accounted for half of the $1.5 million in FY12-13 Library Cooperative Grants that were vetoed.
One project, the Southeast Florida Municipal Libraries Digital Consortium, is a model of how library consortia help smaller community libraries afford downloadable ebook access through volume purchasing.
SWFLN has already suspended work on an existing project, Digitizing Southwest Florida’s Heritage, a project coordinated with the University of Florida.
