Librarians' Internet Index Faces 50% Budget Cut
-- Library Journal, 3/6/2006
Is a state-supported librarian-selected index to the web no longer viable? The California-based Librarians' Internet Index (LII), formerly known as the Librarians' Index to the Internet, faces a 50 percent funding cut for the next fiscal year, beginning July 1, according to LII director Karen Schneider, who told LJ LII will take new steps to seek partners, sponsors, and even advertisers to make up the difference. The LII budget is currently $400,000, with 70 percent of that going to the eight staffers (3 FTE), all of whom work remotely; only Schneider works full-time. A 50 percent cut would mean a significant reduction in staff hours (including hers), with correspondingly less content, Schneider said. LII, which focuses on "well-organized, high-quality, librarian-selected websites related to California," is mainly funded through the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA), administered through the California State Librarian. It gets additional support from the Washington State Library to add, organize, and maintain websites of interest to Washington, and receives funding to provide services to California Digital Library.
"Even in that worst-case scenario, we will continue to produce a (significantly shorter) weekly newsletter, and we will also continue with our first priority, the "weeding" operations we use to keep our 18,000+ records for high-quality websites clean and current," Schneider wrote in a message to California librarians. However, LII "will be unable to produce new 'Featured Collections' next year." Schneider said the site gets ten million hits a month, with 20 percent from California, so there's an opportunity to partner with other states. A user survey being sent to the 35,000 subscribers to LII's newsletter will ask if they favor the concept of ads on the site and sponsorships for the newsletter (both of which have gotten state approval). "If we can charge for these services in a way that's barrier free, it's going to be a big help," she said. Commented fellow ALA Councilor Michael McGrorty on his blog, "LII provides a priceless resource whose work is not likely to be taken up by any other organization without significant negative change in the nature of that service or the addition of fees, filtering, and other restrictions."
