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ANNUAL REPORT

1997

Director's Message

A Penny for the Library

A penny for the Library. Erie County legislators heard this message repeatedly from citizens at the annual budget hearing and responded with a 1997 library budget that sustained all current services and allowed some minor but necessary improvements, including Sunday hours at regional locations.

It was a small investment - one extra penny per thousand dollars of assessed value of the equalized property tax - but that investment yielded a significant return in service to the community.

It was a terrific beginning to a year of progress and promise - a year when B&ECPL began to visualize its future in new and exciting ways.

With the aid of some of America's most reputable authorities in library planning, B&ECPL initiated its long-awaited strategic planning process. It sought input from the community and invited public officials from County, City and local governments to participate. It assembled volumes of demographic, economic and oper-ational data, which it continues to analyze daily.

B&ECPL does not intend to pursue "business as usual" as it approaches the new millennium. It intends to embrace the future with a plan that will meet the needs of its constituents for many years to come. With that plan will come challenges as yet unarticulated. With that plan will come hard choices and hard work. More importantly, with that plan will come a vision of what this library can become, not just a nostalgic reflection of what it used to be.

In December, one of B&ECPL's planners told library trustees from communities all across Erie County: "The brightest days of this library system may be the ones ahead."

Small investments managed with care and foresight today can generate tremendous wealth tomorrow. This library's future relies on the investments we make in it now and the thoughtful stewardship we apply to those investments daily.

Every penny makes a difference.

Daniel L. Walters, Director

Chairman's Message

In 1997, there was an air of enthusiasm and expectation at the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library. Things were happening. Good things.

As the Board of Trustees and staff continued to apply themselves to the daily task of providing Erie County residents with quality library resources and services, everyone kept one eye on the horizon, hoping to catch a glimpse of the future.

The Buffalo and Erie County Public Library intends to be an important player in the days ahead. As community needs evolve, we intend to evolve to meet those needs. As information technologies change, we intend to keep pace with those changes and introduce the best of them into our operations, side-by-side with all of our traditional services and resources. As financial sustenance remains uncertain, we intend to develop more creative ways to manage the resources we have and new strategies to attract the supplemental resources we require to undertake the projects that conventional funding won't allow.

In 1997, B&ECPL saw record circulation of library materials, tremendous advances in automation, significant progress in redesigning and rebuilding the system infrastructure, and the beginnings of a long-awaited strategic planning process.

Next year, another person will chair the B&ECPL Board of Trustees. As much as I take pride in everything this library has accomplished in recent years, I envy my successor, Rebecca L. Mahoney, who will serve as chair when we culminate much of the important and wonderful work we have just begun.

There are great days ahead. I know because we are laying the foundations for them today.

Robert J. Plache, Chairman

In 1997, the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library began its long-awaited strategic planning process when the Board of Trustees unanimously selected Aaron Cohen Associates, Ltd. to lead a service and operations analysis of the Library System. In August and September, consultants met with constituent groups and conducted a facilities analysis of B&ECPL's 52 community library buildings. In December, B&ECPL and its consultants conducted a series of public meetings at library locations throughout the county to learn more about how well the Library meets community needs and what courses it might consider for the future. The planning process will be completed in 1998.

In January, five regional locations joined the Central Library in providing highly popular Sunday service. For many two-income households, the only chance to share time together as a family is on Sundays. The Audubon, Kenmore, Julia Boyer Reinstein, Hamburg and Orchard Park Libraries were selected for this service enhancement, in part, because they are convenient to concentrations of population, have larger collections, adequate parking, reasonable reading and study space, and access to BEACON, the Library's on-line public access catalog. For a relatively modest investment, B&ECPL has answered an important community need. Sunday hours accounted for a circulation increase of 185,464 in 1997.

The second of four annual $250,000 installments from County Executive Dennis T. Gorski provided a needed boost to the materials budget and increased B&ECPL's ability to acquire more library resources in an increasing variety of formats. The Library was able to purchase 26,060 more items in 1997 (176,781) than it did in 1996 (150,721).

As 1997 drew to a close, B&ECPL's on-line public access catalog was available in approximately half of the branches and contract libraries serving the residents of Erie County. Work proceeded with the re-wiring of the Central Library and establishment of a Network Office to support B&ECPL's technology efforts. An Internet Team comprised of volunteers from the Central Library, branches and contract libraries met regularly to build B&ECPL's World Wide Web site and develop proposed drafts of Internet access policies and procedures for future implementation.

B&ECPL was one of only ten libraries across the United States to win a $30,000 LibraryLINK grant from MCI Communications Corporation and the American Library Association in 1997. The three-year community service initiative from MCI is designed to help advance the technological capabilities of our nation's public libraries.

On Saturday March 1, hundreds of guests visited the Amherst Main Library at Audubon for the dedication of the newly expanded 22,206 square foot facility. The $1.1 million, 8,841 square foot addition makes Audubon the largest public library building in Erie County, outside the Central Library in downtown Buffalo.

Various contract libraries celebrated significant anniversaries in 1997. On February 7, approximately 200 guests visited the recently renovated Hamburg Public Library for a Centennial Tea to inaugurate a yearlong celebration of the Library's 100th anniversary. The Lackawanna Public Library, one of the area's few remaining Carnegie library buildings, celebrated 75 years of service with a host of special events throughout the summer, including a tea honoring former library director Stella Bajorek, whose career at the library spanned forty-eight years. On October 19, the Boston Free Library celebrated a half-century of service with a gala fundraiser and special events.

On Sunday, April 13, poet Celeste Lawson and the legendary Al Tinney Trio opened National Library Week with a program entitled "In Praise of Friendship," entertaining an audience of nearly one hundred at the Central Library's Ring of Knowledge. In addition to opening Library Week, this event also celebrated National Poetry Month as part of the Urban Library Council and Academy of American Poets' "30-30-30" campaign, which promoted 30 poetry readings in 30 US cities over the 30 days of National Poetry Month.

A "Poets in Person" grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities in cooperation with the Modern Poetry Association and the American Library Association made it possible for B&ECPL to conduct "Muse at 11," a five-week series on contemporary American poets. Response was so enthusiastic that participants persuaded moderator Ken Sroka of Canisius College to extend the series an extra week to prolong the enjoyment and discovery of the experience.

Forty-five B&ECPL libraries conducted programs as part of the New York State Summer Reading Club campaign: "Go Wild! Read!" Approximately 6,000 children and young adults participated in programs and reading-related activities during July and August.

The New York State Education Department granted B&ECPL a $22,240 Parent/Child Grant enabling four city branches to introduce at-risk children and their parents to the library, to computers and to local cultural agencies. This ongoing project stresses homework help and opportunities to experience new technologies, new ideas and cultural diversity for participants and their families.

B&ECPL's Department of Extension Services won an $80,000 "Begin With Books" grant through the federal Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA). Through on-site programming, the Library provides fun but educational ways to increase children's emerging literacy skills and familiarize them with the public library.

Thanks to the efforts of B&ECPL's Shipping Department and all branches and contract libraries, "Books for Kids," a community-wide literacy campaign that has provided more than 50,000 children in Western New York with books they otherwise never would own, surpassed its goal of 70,000 new or gently-used books. The 1997 drive, co-sponsored by The Buffalo News and Buffalo State College, amassed nearly 80,000 volumes for distribution to deserving youth.

In September, the Library acquired publication rights to Mark Twain's handwritten manuscript, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, paving the way for a cooperative venture with the University at Buffalo Libraries to produce a CD-ROM based on the manuscript. Until this new agreement was reached, B&ECPL could display the manuscript, but lacked the right to publish it in hard copy or electronic form - or even mount it on its own World Wide Web server. Through the cooperation of the UB Foundation, the Baird Foundation, and the Library Foundation, B&ECPL has reinforced its leadership in determining the future of this priceless literary treasure.

Throughout 1997, the Central Library was engaged in significant improvement projects as part of Erie County's Capital Budget. One project replaced the two original heating boilers (circa 1962) and circulating pumps with modern, more energy efficient models. A separate project replaced aged and largely non-functional HVAC system controls with electronic, computer-monitored versions. Concurrently, asbestos was removed from ceiling areas surrounding the escalators on both public service floors.

An integral component of full deployment of the OPAC project involves upgrading the electrical infrastructure and establishing a data-cabling network in the Central Library. This project will distribute clean power to all computer workstations and provide network connections to future OPAC workstations throughout the building. These efforts will extend and improve the functionality of the Central Library building for years to come.

Thanks in part to Sunday hours and increases in the materials budget, B&ECPL set another circulation record in 1997, with a total of 8,997,924 items borrowed by Erie County residents, an overall increase of 2% over 1996.

1997 System Statistics

Administrative Officers

Daniel L. Walters, Director
Diane J. Chrisman, Deputy Director, Public & Support Services
Kenneth H. Stone, Deputy Director-CFO
Shirley P. Whelan, Deputy Director-CIO

Financial Summary, 1997

*Of this amount $2,012,609.00 was paid to the Library by the State of New York under the State Aid Program, Local Library Services Aid and Local Services Support Aid and $23,018,144.00 was paid to the Library by the Erie County as the share of the County Property Tax Levy designated for Library purposes. 

1997 System Statistics

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