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Unit 10: Financial Management

all economies tied together by global trade and against this background the new ‘economics Notes
of the right’ found its moment arriving to challenge the post-1945 Keynesian consensus. Today’s
economic and business climate is still influenced by these changes observed first during the
1970s in the U.S. and UK. The substantial dependency of the professional library and information
area on public sector funding was to prove a considerable disadvantage. The virtual entirety
of public libraries in the U.S. and UK were then, and still are, dependent on local or central
public finance. These major sources of revenue were constrained as a result of these political
and economic changes because the reduction of public spending was one of the major goals
advocated. Likewise, academic and research libraries in the UK were and are virtually all
publicly funded; in the U.S. private funding plays a greater role for research libraries, even
though public funding is very significant for many.

In a perverse way, with hindsight, and from a library and information standpoint it could be
said that the economic environment over the last twenty years has been both a negative force
and a stimulus at the same time. Constraint on public funds and a shift to an enterprise
culture undermined the welfare tradition of social provision. But it also encouraged a climate
of innovation and so gained new potential and momentum. Little by little these library and
information services have begun to explore markets and commerce, new customer sectors,
added-value services, and new managerial responsibilities. They have discovered, albeit through
a painful process, that public obligations can be sustained and innovation and adaptation
engendered at the same time.

10.1 Source of Funds

The Pennsylvania Library Association (PaLA) and the Pennsylvania Citizens for Better Libraries
(PCBL) issued a Request for Proposal for a data-gathering project in December 2006. The
project intent was “to collect information on the ways the operating costs of public library
services are supported by governmental funds on both the local and state levels in the other
49 states.” The data will be used as part of a planning process to develop a blueprint for
improving and stabilizing funding for Pennsylvania’s public libraries and for improving the
quality of services delivered to Pennsylvania’s 12 million residents. The firm of RPA Inc.,
located in Williamsport, PA, was selected to conduct the data gathering in March 2007. Senior
Consultants Patricia L. Owens and Mary Sieminski were assigned to the project. Consultants
used the following sources to obtain the data:
• Chief Officers of State Library Agencies (COSLA)
• National Center for Education Statistics (NCES)

• Public Library Association (PLA)
• Interviews with staff of the various state library agencies

• Urban Libraries Council (ULC).
The data presented in this report are intended to be used as part of a planning process to
develop a blueprint for stabilizing and, we hope, improving funding for Pennsylvania’s public
libraries and therefore improving the quality of services delivered to Pennsylvania’s 12 million
residents. At the request of the Pennsylvania Library Association (PaLA) and Pennsylvania
Citizens for Better Libraries (PCBL), RPA Inc. consultants gathered data essential to understanding
the broader picture of library funding on the state and local level. We were not asked to draw
conclusions from this data. We, the consultants, collected data nationally on the funding of
public libraries at the state and local levels, specifically, looking at the revenue-generating
mechanisms in place which tates can use to raise funds sales tax, property tax, realty transfer
taxes, etc.

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