Library Law - The District Idea: Questions to Consider
Big Picture Discussion Questions
- How would patrons and our community benefit?
- How would the library (including staff and board) benefit?
- What are our concerns about this process?
- How can we address those concerns?
Logistical Questions
- How will this benefit the residents of each county? Will there be any downsides for residents?
- What would the boundaries of the district be?
- Will there be only one director? If so, who?
- What about the makeup of the district board? How many representatives from each county? Will you have advisory boards?
- What services does each library offer now? What services does each library wish it could offer?
- What are the weak areas? What are some of the challenges that the district would have to address?
- What are our strengths?
- What about individual policies? How would those work?
- What does the new district have to have? Things every branch has to do.
- How will decisions be made?
- Money? What is the budget of each library right now? How much would each library need in the new system? How much will each library need in the future - say, 5 or 10 years from now? Are there one time only costs that need to be addressed?
- How would the money be dispersed to each library?
- How would accounting for the new district be handled?
- How would payroll be handled?
- What about insurance costs such as building and errors and omissions?
- What about employee benefits such as health insurance and retirement?
