HUNTLEY – “I think everybody’s well aware the state is going through a financial crunch at the moment. And it has obligations that it’s not able to fill financially.”
To help offset funding issues, if a patron places a hold on library material owned by their respective library, that material will not be ordered from another library even if the material is currently checked out.
The crunch that Huntley Area Library Director Patrick McDonald referred to is, of course, well-understood and felt throughout almost every home and business in Illinois. And in July the belt tightened around the Huntley Library and others in its district, when the state failed to supply revenue to the North Suburban Library System, jeopardizing the libraries interlibrary loan program, which allows books to be loaned from one library to another.
The interlibrary loan program not only offers patrons expediency in obtaining materials but allows libraries to loan books without having to purchase them for their own collection, saving money.
“It’s kind of a win-win situation for everybody. You effectively get a larger library,” McDonald said.
On July 1, due to lack of state funding, NSLS (who runs the interlibrary loan program) ceased almost all operations.
“We were faced with a choice,” McDonald said. “The libraries came together very quickly. It was amazing.”
Huntley Library, along with 47 other libraries in the district, supplied emergency funds to NSLS to keep the program operational for three months. Subsequently, NSLS has been able to stretch that funding through the present.
To date, the state has yet to completely fulfill its financial obligation to NSLS, which is currently operating on skeleton crew. However, state law requires that Illinois issue the funds for the interlibrary loan program. Recently the state paid out two checks to NSLS totaling about $400,000 of the full $800,000 promised by the state to NSLS.
With this money in the bank, McDonald said, NSLS can keep transporting books from one library to the other through June 2011. McDonald added that for now it’s too early to predict the future of the program after June 2011, but he, along with other libraries, are remaining optimistic.
McDonald said, “We’re just kind of taking it as it comes.”
