More e-books, flat spending at Gail Borden Library

The Gail Borden Public Library District is increasing its spending for e-books but overall holding the line on expenses, even with a new library branch that opened in South Elgin.

The library board this week approved a $12,913,000 operating budget - $131,000 more than last year - for the fiscal year that started July 1. Its overall budget includes $2.5 million in bond principal and interest payments.

"We are very proud of that we only have a 1 percent budget increase with the new location opening," said Denise Raleigh, division chief of public relations and communications. "We run it in a very efficient manner with lots of technology, so we can continue to run it without a tax increase."

The district spends $89.30 for each of its 144,597 residents. Arlington Heights Memorial Library spends $187.67 per district resident and the Aurora Public Library spends $53.93 per resident, Raleigh said.

The South Elgin branch has issued 98 library cards with an average 1,122 weekly visitors in its first five weeks of operation.

The new branch doesn't yet offer online reservations for its Mediabank dispenser of movies and video games. "We are putting a lot of pressure on our vendor to get that fixed, and we hope to get that to our customers soon," Raleigh said. "That will drive the circulation numbers even further."

The library had budgeted $62,500 and spent $71,000 in e-books last year; it is increasing that to $91,000 this year. "Last month alone we had a 19 percent increase in e-books," Raleigh said. "We look at how people are engaging and that's where we put our resources."

Gail Borden is investing in new software that will better tailor its online newsletter for patrons, she said.

"We want to bring you a library that will serve you as you want to be served," she said. "Right now the newsletter contains scatterings of general info for all people. If you're an adult, maybe you're not interested in children's programming. Or if you're a heavy e-book user, you want to know more about that."

Total expenses for fiscal year 2015-16 were about $780,000 under budget, nearly half in personnel-related savings.

Six top-level administrators retired last year and the library changed health care providers to save on costs, Raleigh said. The district has 80 full-time and 144 part-time employees.

Gail Borden also plans to increase its translations, mostly in Spanish, of fliers, posters and exhibit materials, Raleigh said.

The library reaches 71 percent of its potential patrons in the district, with a 55 percent reach among Spanish-speaking patrons, Raleigh said. Both numbers are above the average for Illinois libraries, she added.