Didn't I say I love being in the paper?

Bucks Buy Books launches yearly appeal
2008 marks fifth edition of library funding drive
by Dan BerganSpecial to the Tribune
Published: Monday, September 15, 2008 6:10 AM CDT
Hibbing Daily Tribune

HIBBING — Imagine being handed a brand new book to read every other day for four straight years.

Or imagine books aligned cover to cover from the goal line to midfield at Cheever Stadium.

Or imagine every K-8 student in Hibbing given a new book at the start of this school year.

Bucks Buy Books has — no imagination needed — literally had that kind of impact on the book acquisition program at the Hibbing Public Library.

Initiated by the library board of trustees in 2004 in response to a drastic cut in Local Government Aid that saw a 50 percent reduction in the acquisition budget, Buck Buy Books has added 1,123 new books, some $28,000 worth, during the four year run of the community appeal.

In cooperation with the Hibbing Public Utilities, the library sends a funding appeal letter with every HPU bill mailed to utility customers at this time of year. Customers may either enclose donations in the attached envelopes and mail them to the library or stop directly at the library to drop off contributions. Either way, the donations have become a crucial part of library book acquisitions, perhaps this year more so even than in the past.

“Our book budget has been seriously threatened again this year,” reported library director Ginny Richmond.“My book budget for next year is $66,000, and I have been asked to cut $50,000 from my overall proposed budget for 2009."

“There are only so many line items that can be trimmed, with most of my requested funding dedicated to staff or maintenance. Book acquisition is the only large area that can be significantly pared.”

Reference librarian and technical services director, Nancy Riesgraf, reinforced how crucial Bucks Buy Books has become to the public library. “We can’t have everything,” she reported, “but we try to have a little bit of everything and Bucks Buy Books helps a great deal.” As the staff member responsible for ordering adult books, Riesgraf tries to balance the library’s 82,000 item collection with everything from best sellers to local authors to medical books and history. “Bucks Buy Books has permitted us to have multiple copies on hand of popular selections,” she explained, “particularly fiction genre–our most popular category.”

Children’s librarian Chuck Bell tries to stay current with popular works by consulting the New York Times list of best sellers and checking with Amazon and Barnes and Noble “to find out what kids are reading” before he does his ordering. Access to Bucks Buy Books monies means that he can stay topical with popular reading material for children. “Books on dinosaurs change as rapidly as does the research on them,” he illustrated as an example. “Kids will catch me if I don’t have up-to-date materials for them to read.”

Richmond concurred, noting that “new is important because information changes so rapidly in the modern world. “Bucks Buy Books allows us to acquire current materials and frees up other dollars for collection development throughout the library.”

Library Board of Trustees chairman Mike Marincel hoped that the 2008 drive matches the success of past years, success that “speaks well of the value that Hibbing residents place in literacy and the importance of a community library.”

HPU customers may mail their contributions in the envelope provided. Or anyone may drop off donations directly at the Hibbing Public Library.