It is the "Year of the Volunteer"

In case you haven't heard it is the Year of the Volunteer. It happens every time a community is faced with decreased revenue,and Charlotte NC is in that category this year indeed. Bank Town was hit hard by the economic melt down. So was our library. Our budget is down 9 million, that's the good news. It was recommended that we take a 17.5 million cut which would have been half of our previous budget. We still lost almost half of our staff and 3 libraries (of 24) have closed doors for good. Yeah...its been a brutal Spring.

The following is the first verse we heard from county commissioners "why don't you use more volunteers?" The second verse is the same as the first. So guess what? We are going to double our volunteer workforce. This has led to all kinds of interesting questions. Are volunteers taking jobs from staff? If we do a really good job with volunteers will we lose funding for staff positions?

We may be making history here. Do you know of any library that is receiving funding based on our ability to engage volunteers? That is what happened here and it goes by the name of "inter-local agreement". The municipalities that surround Charlotte were approached for additional funding revenue. They said sure but we want our libraries open more than 4 days a week; why don't you use more volunteers? So now we have it in writing. Money given with a caveat, open these 5 towns' branches a 5th day with the help of volunteers.

Can it be done? Should it be done? Want to take this journey with me? I'll be blogging about it.Celebrate it. Its the year of the volunteer.