Thank you all so much for your support during the Override vote. The Library was facing very scary consequences if the vote failed, so it is a joy and a relief to be able to continue to provide the Lynnfield community with the excellent services we have always strived to provide. Lynnfield will continue to be certified, remain open our usual hours, and keep all staff members, aside from the currently vacant Assistant Director position. The staff, Trustees, Friends, Foundation, and, of course, I am very grateful to you all.
However, our funding was still significantly cut from previous years, so we will be facing some changes to our services in the new fiscal year, starting July 1, 2025. The staff and I worked hard to minimize the impact on community members. We started first with cutting our Continuing Education budget, which is disappointing for us as staff members, but we hope to find creative ways to supplement that loss for now. Cuts have also had to be made to the amount of materials we purchase. Lynnfield Public Library staff always try to purchase any materials requested by a member of the Lynnfield community, as long as it is in line with our Collection Development Policy. We will have to be much more careful with those funds and may not be able to purchase certain titles. There will also be cuts to our physical audiobooks, DVDs, and other collections. In particular, several databases, such as hoopla, Medici.tv, and Kanopy, will have more limits to access or may be removed as the year goes on. We will make these decisions based on usage and feedback from you, so if there is a database you love to use, please let us know. We have had to cut our Wowbrary newsletter, which shared information about new titles that had arrived at the library. You can still access these lists on the main page of the library catalog.
Additionally, cuts have been made to the Programming and Technology budget lines. We will be relying entirely on the Friends of the Lynnfield Library to provide funding for our programming and events going forward, instead of just 2/3 of that budget. We are so grateful for our Friends! Please consider joining by visiting www.foll.org.
Overall, this means we will have less new technology, not as much ability to replace computers, fewer new books and other materials, and roughly a 1/3 reduction in programming. Luckily, libraries are historically great at doing more with less, so, again, we will do our best to minimize the impact on your library experience.
Furthermore, as you may or may not be aware, the budget for the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) has been almost entirely removed from next year’s federal budget. A significant portion of our databases and e-book budget are provided by the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners (MBLC), which received funds from IMLS. They have had to cut a number of online services and will be providing a smaller amount to be put towards e-books. You can learn more about this at the MBLC website. Of particular note, MBLC has had to remove our access to the database Transparent Languages, but it is so popular that the Board of Library Trustees kindly voted to use some of our State Aid to fund that database for FY 26. There may be some disruption of service, but we hope to have it up and running as soon as possible. However, the future of MBLC and the services, grants, and State Aid they are able to provide us is very up in the air at this time and we do not know what the future holds, in terms of state and federal funding.
Please let us know if you have any questions by calling 781-334-5411 or emailing aporter@noblenet.org.