Thursday, November 10, 2011
The Evanston Public Library will likely not transition to an autonomous library fund model until 2013, but an agreement with the city will still provide the library board with increased control.
More than a year after the Evanston Public Library Board of Trustees voted to adopt a library fund model to become an autonomous governing body rather than an advisory group, the board endorsed a tentative agreement with the City of Evanston that would keep the library as part of the city until 2013. As recently as two weeks back, the library board planned to switch to the new governance model at the end of 2011. But at the board’s Wednesday night meeting, Evanston City Manager Wally Bobkiewicz proposed an agreement between the two sides that would instead gradually transfer some governing authority to the library board over the course of the next six months. Bobkiewicz said the move was preferable to the board’s original plan because an …
42.048325
-87.680766
Evanston Public Library
1703 Orrington Ave, Evanston, IL
/articles/library-likely-to-delay-shift-to-autonomy-through-agreement-with-city
261757
/locations/5779336
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Evanston's library board passed a 2012 budget that had north-siders jumping for joy and other residents complaining of unequal neighborhood services.
The Evanston Public Library Board of Trustees passed a 2012 budget with funding to both keep the North Branch library open at current service levels and create a new community engagement librarian position. The motion passed 5-3, with one board member abstaining, at the board’s Wednesday night meeting and was the first library budget approved under the board’s new autonomous library fund model. The approved budget was one of three options under consideration. The first of the two remaining scenarios, dubbed the “base budget,” continued North Branch funding but did not provide for the new community engagement position, while the second alternative closed the North Branch and hired the new librarian. Throughout the meeting, several board …
42.048325
-87.680766
Evanston Public Library
1703 Orrington Ave, Evanston, IL
/articles/library-board-votes-to-keep-north-branch-and-hire-community-engagement-librarian
261757
/locations/5423045
Friday, September 2, 2011
The Evanston Public Library Board of Trustees has to decide on a 2012 budget by Sept. 21, but two core issues are making consensus illusive.
The Evanston Public Library Board of Trustees has a lot on its plate. The group just received a proposed strategic plan outlining the library’s core goals through 2014 and is currently operating without a permanent library director (the person who directs staff, manages library services, and advises the board), all while attempting to use its newfound responsibility as a potentially autonomous governing body to create a reasonable 2012 budget that both addresses public concern over scarce neighborhood services and doesn’t raise property taxes too high for residents. How to balance these challenges and in what order to address them were the contentious questions of the divisive, muddled and, at times, heated debate at Wednesday night’s …
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Though the Evanston Public Library is legally autonomous, it will be financially reliant on the City of Evanston for the near future. Can the library board operate successfully with such contingencies and will it ever become wholly self reliant?
It has been almost a year since the Evanston Public Library Board of Trustees voted to become an autonomous governing body by adopting a library fund model, but only in the past few months has the board been forced to take up the new responsibilities that accompany their decision. For the first time ever, the board will have the ability to determine how much funding the library gets in the coming year by levying a tax as a percentage of the money the city receives from property taxes. While this seems like an ideal mechanism to alleviate recent financial concerns and even expand neighborhood services, the transition to the new funding model burdens the board with a new set of considerations, including defining its relationship with the …
42.048325
-87.680766
Evanston Public Library
1703 Orrington Ave, Evanston, IL
/articles/autonomous-library-board-still-reliant-on-city
261757
/locations/4904084
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Evanston's autonomous Library Board of Trustees faces new challenges and an altered connection to the city as it plans its fiscal year 2012 budget.
Starting next year, Evanston’s Library Board of Trustees will act as an autonomous governing body after adopting a new library fund model last September. But with self-governance comes new financial and political challenges, the details of which the board discussed and debated at Wednesday night’s board meeting. Amid both fiscal year 2012 and long-term planning processes, the board is remapping its relationship with the city by creating a “memorandum of understanding” between the two entities and determining how the new library fund model will finance capital improvement projects without relying on city-issued bonds. With its newly gained powers the library board can levy a tax as a percentage of the money the city collects from property …
42.048325
-87.680766
Evanston Public Library
1703 Orrington Ave, Evanston, IL
/articles/library-board-doesnt-see-eye-to-eye-in-understanding-with-city
261757
/locations/4631760
Thursday, January 20, 2011
At Wednesday's meeting, the library board unanimously voted to accept an undisclosed amount of funding donated to support an interim South Branch.
Evanston’s South Branch Library may have life in it yet. At Wednesday night’s Evanston Library Board of Trustees meeting, the board unanimously voted to accept an undisclosed amount of funding donated by the Evanston Public Library Friends to support an interim South Branch location for the 2011 fiscal year. The motion passed only two months after the board revealed that the South Branch would close, ending its lease at 949 Chicago Avenue after 76 years at that location. During the board’s December meeting, trustees passed a budget insufficient to maintain current service level at the library’s North Branch, let alone fund a new or provisional branch in South or West Evanston. Under the new agreement, the Friends will rent and prepare a …
Friday, November 19, 2010
The South Branch's lease is up at 949 Chicago Ave.
After a 76-year stay at its current location, the Evanston Public Library's South Branch will likely have to close or find a new home, come March 1. The fallout from this news coupled with the search for a potential interim location dominated the conversation at Thursday night's Evanston Library Board of Trustees' meeting, held in the Main Branch's Barbara Friedberg Storytelling Room. "Our lease is up and … we learned about 10 days ago that the landlord has another prospective tenant," said board member Dona Gerson. "It has [been there] a very long time and the community is adjusted to that as a branch library. So I don't want to see it become nothing. I don't want it to just disappear." Gerson introduced the issue, calling for library …
42.048325
-87.680766
Evanston Public Library
1703 Orrington Ave, Evanston, IL
/articles/evanston-public-librarys-south-branch-to-move-or-close-in-march
261757
/locations/2481819
42.034934
-87.679577
Evanston Public Library - South Branch
949 Chicago Ave, Evanston, IL
/articles/evanston-public-librarys-south-branch-to-move-or-close-in-march
1453506
/locations/2481820
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Board agreed to cut one position, restore a day of service to the branches.
The Evanston Library Board voted Monday night to restore a day of service to the branch libraries, allowing them to remain open five days a week instead of four, at a cost of $46,645. The vote brought the total library budget for FY11 to $3.9 million. Board Member Susan Stone said the move wasn't about adding services, but restoring them. "We're not adding, we're just getting back what we need," Stone said. In a discussion of ways to reduce the overall budget, the board decided against a plan to open the main branch library later and/or close it earlier. The move would overwork library staff and prevent local groups from using library facilities for early or late meetings, board members said. "If the library board continues to see …
42.048325
-87.680766
Evanston Public Library
1703 Orrington Ave, Evanston, IL
/articles/library-board-approves-budget
261757
/locations/2137410
mij
9:24 pm on Friday, September 30, 2011
Great idea Michele. Let the business district and locals pay for the expenses of running the North Branch. Then the board can focus on the Main Librarary with the extra $400,000. Not sure if any of surrounding communities have branches. Skokie has a nice Main Library on Oakton. more ›