Editorial
Mark Smith

With the recent adoption of standards for school libraries, Texas administrative code now acknowledges what it takes to run a school library. The state of Texas now officially states, for example, that a school library operated at an "acceptable" level should have at least 15 items per student and that the user should be able to access information "from a number of sources in multiple formats." This is not, by the way, the highest level of service outlined by the standards.

But what does the law say about public libraries? It says, among other things, that if a library serving under 10,000 spends $1.20 per capita per year or $5,000, whichever is greater (!), offers one item per person in the community, and has a telephone, that library can be accredited for membership in the Texas Library System. (For larger libraries, the required support goes as high as a whopping $2.80 per capita.)

This should make public librarians steaming mad.

We wonder why we have so little success in convincing legislators, local leaders, and the public of our value and of our genuine needs. We wonder why they do not value what we do and why the media stereotypes us. We wonder why funding for the library systems has not increased in over a decade and why Texas—unlike many other states—provides no direct funding to public libraries.

Why should we wonder? The law says that you can operate a minimally adequate public library for $1.20 per capita per year and 478 of the 504 libraries in the state are already at or above this level. Public libraries—as far as the law goes—are perfectly well funded.

Granted, these are not standards, they are minimum criteria for system membership and they were written to be inclusive. But they were written 20 years ago and have remained unchanged over two decades of inflation, technological growth, and society’s exponentially increased information needs. Frankly, they are embarrassing, especially in regard to per capita expenditure.

School librarians wisely embraced the standards process because they saw that it would lead, ultimately, to a recognition of what it takes to fund adequate library service. Now, armed with state administrative code that clearly states what it costs, school administrators can now go to funding authorities and demand adequate support (see page 129). Public librarians have nothing similar on which to base such claims, nor do we have any platform upon which to ask the Legislature for much needed state level funding for public libraries.

At TLA Annual Assembly, the Public Libraries Division discussed the idea of asking the TLA Executive Board to appoint an ad hoc committee on public library standards, to be comprised of a broad spectrum of members of the public library community, system coordinators, small community library directors, and State Library staff. To use our association in this manner is quite natural and consistent with practice in other occupations.

This is a first step, and let’s cross our fingers that it eventually leads to public library standards. Until they exist, Texas public libraries will lack a key tool in articulating their profound needs for increased funding.