Area libraries take budget hits
11:59 PM CDT on Tuesday, September 28, 2010
By Peggy Heinkel-Wolfe / Staff Writer
Thursday is Georgette Taylor’s last day as program coordinator for the Lake Cities Library.
The library, which serves Corinth, Hickory Creek, Lake Dallas and Shady Shores, is one of several in the area that made big cuts after seeing their budgets trimmed for the 2010-11 fiscal year.
Director Rebecca Belknap said the Lake Cities Library’s budget took hits from all sides, including a 6 percent decrease in funding from Corinth. The library board had no choice but to make cuts, she said.
Funding from Denton County and Lone Star Libraries — grant funding through the Texas State Libraries — was cut this year. Belknap had originally planned to use a Lone Star Libraries grant to pay for digitizing copies of local newspapers in the library’s collection.
“We have some papers that no one else has,” Belknap said.
With the staff cut, she is rethinking that plan. Libraries statewide are working together to fund digitization, a project that the Lake Cities Library could join. If so, the library could use the Lone Star grant to restore some summer children’s programs.
Such early literacy programs are important because they help children make reading a part of their daily lives, according to Eva Poole, director of the Denton Public Library.
“They learn how to read and how to love reading,” she said.
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