Small Texas City Contracts with LSSI

By Norman Oder -- Library Journal, 06/01/2007

The city of San Juan, TX, which lost its one librarian last October and has a library budget of less than $7 per capita, has signed a contract with Library Systems and Services, LLC (LSSI), to staff and operate the city library through September 2012. LSSI will add at least four open hours weekly, to 56, and has already installed a degreed librarian. San Juan city manager Jorge Arcaute told LJ that the city had had trouble hiring a degreed librarian on the library’s $220,000 annual budget. Until 2000, the community in the generally poor Rio Grande Valley had a one-person library in borrowed space. Arcaute in February announced his plans to resign in June; the city lost two other top officials last year.

City officials learned of LSSI at a Texas Municipal League conference. “It seemed like the right thing to do at this point,” said Arcaute. The current staff of five will be offered jobs with LSSI, which gives its employees a 401(k) rather than pension benefits. The library could increase hours and grow beyond its 2500 square foot facility, Arcaute said, if the city invests more. San Juan belongs to the Hidalgo County Library System; members contribute to a shared automation system but are independently funded and governed.