After four confusing months, the Bradford County Commissioners announced that they will not close the county’s largest library at their last meeting of the year.
The announcement is a controversial one, as many county residents have criticized commissioners for making decisions behind closed doors.
Commissioners held an executive meeting about the future of the Bradford County Library (BCL) on Aug. 24. Those sessions are usually kept private so government officials can discuss personnel, public safety, or other internal matters. But at that meeting, commissioners discussed closing the system’s biggest library without holding a vote. Minutes from that meeting were released to the public via social media on Oct. 15.
The library was not on commissioners’ agenda at their last meeting of the year, but they added it in during the meeting. Some residents questioned the commission for not informing the public that the Library Advisory Committee’s recommendations would be announced. However, the “Friends of the Bradford County Library,” a volunteer-run nonprofit that fundraises for BCL, published on their social media page that they believed that commissioners would announce the committee’s decision at the Dec. 28 meeting.
Commissioner Doug McLinko thanked the committee for their work on the library’s and the county library system’s policies. He also shamed the “Friends of BCL” for suing several advisory committee members.
“In a time when volunteerism is in an all-time low, you sue a combat vet, another vet, a school teacher, homeschoolers [teachers], a guy from economic development, you sue a [librarian]. All these people were here to try to make sense of how to take an underutilized, over-budgeted facility,” said McLinko.
According to the “Friends,” they sued the committee for breaking the state’s Sunshine Act by keeping their meetings private to the public.
McLinko said the antagonism between the county government and the library has to end.
“So, today’s going to start a new day,” said McLinko. “Like I said, we’re going to take the recommendations – I’m going to look at them. I’m also going to…glance down through. I’m going to ask the chairman to put on the agenda to put an RFP out for a library consultant so we can have someone who understands this because it’s all over the place.”
RFP’s, or request for proposals, announce projects or positions and ask qualified businesses or individuals to apply.
While commissioners are assessing the committee’s recommendations, they did not decide whether they will follow all of their recommendations. With the help of a library consultant, the recommendations ask to make the library independent of the county. The Bradford County Library is the only library financially supported by the county, while the other eight rely solely on local municipalities and fundraising.
According to BCL Interim Director Rebecca Troup-Hodgdon, the library used to be independent from the county, but that changed in the 1990’s. Now, she worries that the other eight libraries could be negatively affected if BCL goes back to being a nonprofit.
“We would be more competitive with the other libraries. We would actually be eligible for the same grant opportunities. And we would also be seeking donations from – higher donations – from community members,” said Troup-Hodgdon. “Which, again, there’s only so much money available in the county. That could, in theory, detrimentally affect the other libraries, because there’s going to be more competition for the same amount of dollars.”
If accepted by commissioners, some of the committee’s recommendations would change not only BCL, but the entire Library System of Bradford County.
Troup-Hodgdon questioned their recommendation to distribute county-level funding through the library system to all nine libraries through a mutually agreed upon funding formula. Regardless of her library, she said that would require the other eight libraries to agree to change the way they are run.
The libraries follow a federated system, which means each library can make its own operational decisions independently. Changing from that system means that the other libraries would lose some of their freedoms, said Troup-Hodgdon.
“That is a consolidated system. That would require the libraries [to] restructure our current system. And they would have to agree to that. In a consolidated system, they would lose their autonomy. Right now, they’re independent. They have their own governing boards and they can make their own decisions about collection, development, or other policies in the libraries.
While the commissioners decided to keep the library open at their Dec. 28 meeting, they did not decide what committee recommendations they would follow. The commissioners plan to hire a library consultant for BCL in the coming months.
