City plans to check out library system

Survey on funding and meeting public needs at facilities long overdue

City councilors have directed the city manager to initiate a wide-ranging study on the future of Santa Fe’s library system. Perhaps it’s overdue. The last communitywide study of the libraries was done in 1998.

The time is right, then, for the Santa Fe Public Library system — its buildings, programs, resources, services and staff — to be evaluated, improved and possibly expanded, said Patricia Hodapp, the city library director.

“We know we need more,” Hodapp said. “More of everything.”

The city’s three library branches together drew upwards of 710,000 visits last fiscal year. That was an increase of some 10,000 over the previous year, Hodapp said. Also steadily increasing are the number of items checked out (about 653,000 last fiscal year), community members with library cards (59,000) and children attending before or after-school programs at libraries (13,000).

The Santa Fe libraries’ programming is “through the roof,” Hodapp said, adding that library meeting spaces provided free to non-library groups are bumping up against capacity. Expanded hours at the Southside Library have stretched

staff thinner. Computer usage is on the rise, and checkouts for audio books and e-books have risen exponentially in recent years.

But the study is not intended to address only the tech question.

“We have families who come to our libraries. This is not just run-inand-use-a-computer thing,” Hodapp said.

“We have to look at all of the different groups and communities that use the libraries and say, ‘Are we meeting their needs?’ ”

The City Council’s resolution, which passed last Wednesday, calls for a planning and feasibility study of the library system and says a “community-based strategic plan” will lay out the next steps.

Indeed, community members will help dictate the strategy at town hall meetings, through surveys, focus groups and more, beginning early next year.

In addition to identifying specific needs and issues facing the library system, the study will highlight how improvements might be funded.

The vast majority of the library’s $3.5 million-plus annual budget comes from gross receipts taxes. Additional sources include general obligation bonds, the nonprofit Friends of the Santa Fe Library and Santa Fe County.

The outcomes of the study — whether it identifies or emphasizes a need for additional spaces for community gatherings, educational opportunities, multimedia resources or all of those — will hinge on the funding question, Hodapp said.

Regardless, the study will not be busywork, Hodapp said. She cited the example of the Southside Library. The city’s 1998 library master plan, the last in-depth look at the system as a whole, was where the conversation began about establishing a library on the city’s growing south side.

The Southside branch celebrated its 10th anniversary in May.

“I am an optimist, but in this case, I believe the facts are going to be so clear,” Hodapp said. “The councilors and people of Santa Fe know how well-used our libraries are and how much they’re needed. We may not get everything we want, but we will be on our way.”

A committee made up of members of the volunteer advisory library board, friends of the library board, library staff and citizens will help city staff select a consultant with expertise in library planning who will lead the research, according to the resolution.

The study could be complete within a year, Hodapp said.

Taxpayers will pay $37,500 toward the cost of the study. The advisory library board and nonprofit Friends of the Santa Fe Library raised matching funds.