Library posts budget proposal for 2024

Shelter Island voters will be looking at a $956,161 budget proposal for 2024 to support the library when they cast ballots Saturday, Oct. 28. Of that amoount, $789,806 needs to come from taxpayers. The year to year comparison in spending is $34,010.

A property owner with a median priced home assessed at $836,000 will see an estimated $7.87 increase in their taxes to support the library. Taxes support 80% of the budget, Board of Trustees President Jo-Ann Robotti said.

The remainder, Ms. Lucas said, comes primarily from contributions and fundraising activities, much of it driven by Friends of the Library.

None of the spending is related to expenses in connection with the library’s building project that remains very much in the forefront. The community approved the building project this year, but there is work to be done on finalizing the design of the expanded structure and arrangements on financing.

But paying for the expansion won’t start until 2025, Library Director Terry Lucas said.

What accounts for the increased spending is largely health insurance premium costs and small increases in salaries, she said.

She finds it interesting that library patrons have increased the use of ebooks and audio books. The library has seen an increase in patrons ordering those by 18 to 22% per month.

Asked by other librarians about the increase and what the staff might be doing to promote them, Ms. Lucas said she thinks it’s simply word of mouth. There has been no major campaign to push those media, she said.

Given the current size of the library, it can only have space for a certain number of bound books, but while she’s happy to promote the many different ways in which the library serves the community, she confesses that as long as she is director, there will always be attention to bound books.

What both Ms. Lucas and Ms. Robotti want the community to know is in today’s world, the services the staff renders and the items they provide are not just books.

Thanks to a contribution from the Shelter Island Lions Club the library has a machine enabling those with macular degeneration and other eye diseases to be able to enlarge type so they can clearly read. The machine is smaller and lighter than a desktop computer, so it can be moved from one desk space to another, Ms. Lucas said.

Ms. Robotti raves about the List of Things — items available for loan that people need, but don’t necessarily need to own. Such items that can be borrowed include a telescope,  DVD player, birding backpacks, badminton sets and special seasonal cake pans. Staff members have strung a “clothesline of cards” representing the various items and borrowers simply take a card to the front desk where the item of choice will be pulled from the shelves and checked out.

Aside from borrowing materials, many in the community come to the library to socialize. For adults it may be for mahjong, special programs with speakers with a wide array of specialties, access to computers or to use the library’s wi-fi capabilities with their own computers. 

Children come to play with toys; older students bring their homework, but also enjoy games.

Others come for various clinics held for inoculations. They did so during the height of the COVID pandemic and are currently trying to provide on-Island flu and pneumonia shots, Ms. Lucas said. Others come to get passports or because they need a notary.

As much as more space is needed, the current building manages to share what space it has with the school or other organizations.

Ms. Lucas offers some statistics:

• 3,079 library card holders made approximately 96,397 visits to the library in the past 12 months

• At a time when other libraries are seeing a decrease in check-outs of books and other materials, Shelter Island has seen an increase of just its conventional materials being checked out. The 29,705 items in its conventional inventory have been checked out 40,923 times

• There were 23,123 ebook and audio book downloads through Live-brary.com

• 12,183 patrons have enjoyed 1,013 programs offered in person and through virtual access

Voting in the library’s community room takes place between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. on Oct. 28.