Needs & Services Committee Report

SMLC Council Meeting

13 JULY 2006

 

 

The committee met on April 24, 2006.     We discussed the existing Plan of Service and recommended that the By-laws be moved into a separate document, but we spent most of our time discussing this year’s survey.

 

As you know, the co-op is facing a budget crisis, and we felt that the survey should be constructed to gather information that could best assist the board and membership to make critical decisions wisely.   To this end, we decided to construct the survey using the existing Strategic Plan as the framework.

 

I sent a rough draft of the survey to Gail and the committee members for review on April 26.  I compiled their comments and revisions into a second draft, which I sent to Gail, the committee, the Board and the committee chairs, in May.  By early June I had compiled a final draft which I sent out for approval by the committee. 

 

Gail suggested I look into online survey providers such as Survey Monkey and Zoomerang rather than running a paper survey.   Survey Monkey offered the features I wanted for the best price -- $20 a month.

 

We had an excellent response rate – thank you! 

 

  • 30 of 34 public (88%)
  • 10 of 41 school (24%)
  • 6 of 7 academic (86%) and
  • 9 of 11 special  (82%) libraries responded. 

 

That’s well over 80% for all types except schools, and I think schools would have been higher if I had sent the survey during the school year.   I apologize to any school librarians here tonight for that, and thank you if you responded.   I also apologize to all the non-publics that I didn’t include a definition of the QSAC acronym which, of course, only applies to public libraries.

 

Results were made available to all SMLC members via a link sent to Newsnotes earlier this month.   If you didn’t get it, see me.   I’ve also sent a final summary of the survey to Newsnotes today which contains a Word document of all the text answers given.   The survey summary is interesting and useful, but the comments contain the real meat of the responses.  I encourage you to read them.

 

To briefly summarize the results of the budget questions,

 

  • 66% of respondents feel we should remain a multitype,
  • while 65% fee public libraries should no longer subsidize the non-publics.  
  • 67% of the public libraries felt they could pay 75-100% of their indirect state aid to support the co-op.  
  • 65% would like to see SMLC offer services on a cost recovery basis.
  • As an alternative to OCLC, several respondents suggested MelCat, others suggested setting a fee structure for using OCLC and/or setting limits on how many requests each library can make.  Others suggested making direct arrangements with several libraries in WorldCat, or having individual libraries make their own agreements with OCLC and SMLC would do instate ILL only.
  • Ideas to make up for the loss of state grants include continuing or increasing workshops, fund-raising events, and seeking grants.

 

 

Thanks to everyone who responded!

 

--Teresa Stannard (Parchment Community Library)

      Chair, Needs & Services Committee