The Moscow Public Library is more than 100 years old and is funded better than ever.
It all started in one room on the second floor of downtown’s Brown Building with a $15 stove, half a ton of coal, a 15-cent shovel, a table and 12 chairs. Rent was only $3 a month and the library had a total collection of 115 books.
By the 1960s, during the time the library had a bookmobile service that would drive around town bimonthly, the Latah County District’s library circulation was up to 80,088. In fiscal year 2010, the district circulated 293,273 physical items (computer use not included) according to Moscow Public Library’s director Anne Cheadle.
While most libraries in the Internet age are hurting for funding, Moscow’s library profits are quite the opposite.
“When property taxes increase, the library’s income increases,” library assistant Teresa Lucas said.
According to Lucas, who studied Moscow’s funding as part of her graduate studies, property taxes made up 91.31 percent of the library district’s budget for the 2011 fiscal year. The district proposed $28,553 to be internally generated, while the remaining 6.07 percent of the budget consisted of interest and sales tax, grants and carry-over sales. The district’s total revenue is projected to be $1,089,754.
Cheadle said city libraries, in contrast, have more drastic cuts because they’re competing with departments like police and fire. But Moscow is part of a county district that is government funded and independently taxed.
While the Moscow Public Library is doing well financially, it struggled with the Internet age change-over.
“The information age exploded, and of course libraries struggled,” Cheadle said. “In public libraries it’s all about collection … But now, information has given libraries focus. Libraries have a strategic plan to fit their community’s particular needs.”
Recent Moscow technologies include a Wi-Fi hot spot, 10 megabytes of bandwidth, and the addition of ValNet, an online library consortium of catalog material. There are eight Internet access computers and two game-only computers in the Moscow library.
Cheadle said all computers have Microsoft Word with printer access and there are five electronic catalogs placed strategically throughout the stacks.
“Our tools and scope have changed (due to the Internet), but we’re still a rural library that relies on connection to make service better,” Cheadle said.
Daniel Fleming, a graduate student in education, said he goes to the Moscow Public Library to use computers for his online classes. Due to distance, he said he’d rather use the public library’s computers than UI’s.
“They’re super friendly, and the librarians are super helpful,” Fleming said.
Fleming said not having to mess around with the log-in on the student computers and having an account at the public library is another added benefit.
With more than 100 years of service, Moscow Public Library has gone from 150 books to 60,000 items and has morphed to fit the community’s changing needs.
“Because we’re a university community, we have an audience that loves to read and use libraries,” Cheadle said. “Latah County in general is a community that is very supportive of public libraries– they’re valued.”