Kirkpatrick lobbies legislators to keep funding in place

At the request of the county library district director, Whitman County commissioners have penned a letter to Olympia, urging legislators to ease proposed cuts to the state’s portion of library funding.

Kristie Kirkpatrick, county library director, told commissioners last week state budget proposals include as much as $2 million in cuts to library funding.

For smaller districts with smaller lines of funding, the state and federal dollars are critical, she said. King County’s library system, she pointed to as an example, can absorb the costs because of higher budgets.

“I think the louder voices really have to come from the rural libraries, because we’re really the most affected,” Kirkpatrick said.

She said such a cut would amplify a funding pinch for small libraries. Nearly half of that money, $987,000, is leveraged as a state match to receive $3.4 million in federal funding each year.

Federal funds are used to subscribe to internet services and to fund youth programs, both of which, she said, are used more than the library’s collection of books.

Kirkpatrick said library staffers spend a lot of time trying to capture the grant dollars to preserve funding.

“We’re just really tenacious about that,” she said.

Money from D.C. is used by the library to subscribe to internet reference databases and to special services like down loading audio books.

Kirkpatrick said audio books have been one of the most requested services by library patrons. The library’s subscription to an internet audio book service costs $25,000, as much as the library spent on fiction and non-fiction books last year.

Five reference database systems are provided through the federal grants. Those are most often used by students on research projects, said Kirkpatrick.

The federal money has also been used to fund special programs used by the library.

One example Kirkpatrick pointed to was a magician the library hired to tour local towns and put on a show for children.