City-Suburban Merger in MN?

By Norman Oder -- Library Journal, 3/1/2007

A merger of the cash-strapped Minneapolis Public Library (MPL) into the more prosperous Hennepin County Library (HCL) has been on the table for months (and talked about for years) and now seems more likely to happen. Two panels studying the library situation are leaning toward a merger, according to the Star-Tribune, and the city library board chair seems amenable, even though MPL's autonomy and identity would be subsumed into the county system.

The city system has 15 branches and 2.2 million items; the suburban system has 26 branches and 1.9 million items. However, HCL is much more of a popular materials library, with 6.6 average copies per title, as opposed to MPL's 1.9 figure, and can afford to buy more than double the number of new materials.

The merger would not be of equals, as 62 percent of the funding would come from the county. Though MPL opened a handsome new central library in May 2006, budget cuts, dating back to the loss of Local Government Aid, have shrunk hours and caused MPL to mothball three branches (see News, LJ1/07, p. 17ff.). State legislation would be required to effect the merger. “The two library systems complement each other well in terms of collections and program strengths,” the MPL blog stated.