The time is upon us: starting in January, Whitman students might actually spend less time in the library. In expectation of the Dec. 3 biennium vote on the city budget, Walla Walla County may decide to cut funding to the public library next year in a decision that would affect library service to Whitties as well as to thousands of local residents living outside Walla Walla who will no longer be granted free used of the library.
In addition to servicing residents living within the city limits, Walla Walla Public Library is currently under contract with the Rural Library County District of Walla Walla, or RLD, to provide library services to people living immediately outside the City of Walla Walla: an area known as “the Donut.” In compensation for servicing those who do not pay property taxes to the city, RLD agrees to pay the library $365,000 a year. This payment, which is raised from a separate library tax, prevents people living right outside the incorporated area of the city from having to drive across county for library service.
Unfortunately for Donut residents, the Agreement for Library Services expires at the end of this year. In anticipation of this deadline, last April Walla Walla County decided to reevaluate the terms of the agreement. No decision about the future of library services has been finalized yet, but in the worst case scenario, the public library will no longer be contracted to provide library services for those residents living immediately outside the city. In other words, the library would lose one-third of its annual budget, forcing it to compete for city funds with the top-priority fire and police departments.
“The county thinks that they can provide a good a service on their own instead of paying [Walla Walla Public Library] to do it,” said Director Martha Van Pelt. “They were subcontracting it out to us, but now they’re thinking about doing it themselves.”
In the event of a decision not to renew its contract with Walla Walla Public Library, the county would have to build a facility for people living immediately outside the city limits in order to provide the same level of library service. Otherwise, starting next year those residents will be forced to drive to one of the county’s more distant library branches in Burbank, Prescott or Touchet. The alternative option would be to buy a public library card for a projected price of $135.
“The closest library branch [to Walla Walla] is Touchet, which is 25 minutes away,” said Van Pelt. “Even though people might live on Brook Lane, just past the high school or even in College Place, they pay the same amount of money as someone who lives in Burbank: but they would get no service. If the county doesn’t build another library for those people who live outside the city limits, they will either have to buy a $135 library card or use the library in Touchet, Burbank or some other branch.”
For people living in the center of the Donut, library service would not be as radically affected by this remodeled library services plan. The City of Walla Walla would be compelled to backfill some of the lost $365,000 commission, but not enough to fund the necessary amount of materials, services and facilities required to maintain the library’s current level of operation. For Whitties and their neighbors, this means there would be fewer opportunities to visit the library and fewer materials to check out.
“A lot of Whitman students come here and get cards so they can use the internet and check out fiction and magazines, check out our DVDs and music CDs,” said Van Pelt. “Ours is a public library with a different focus than yours. Whitman has an academic library; it’s meant to support what you do in class: it’s not for popular culture. Our library is for everything.” In the words of one student, “They have a lot more readable books, not just academic books.”
According to Van Pelt, the library would likely address the possible budgetary dilemma by eliminating open hours in the evenings and on the weekends, especially on Saturday. “For every extra hour we’re open, we require one more professional and two more desk people,” said Van Pelt. “Monday is actually our busiest day, and Monday night we are swamped. The problem is that Saturday is really expensive because it’s the sixth day in the rotation. It costs just as much to run the library on Saturday as it does on Thursday and Friday, but we don’t get the traffic.”
In all likelihood, some of that traffic comes from the direction of Whitman, but students still have two months of public library hangout time before they have to use Penrose exclusively for bookish weekend fun.
