As I write this, on October 15, 2008, CNN is reporting the DOW down 733 points after a week of losing 1,000 points. Americans are worrying about their homes, jobs and retirement funds. What about Libraries? Libraries in Illinois are funded by property taxes, and, as all the news-watchers out there know, the eye of this current economic hurricane is the mortgage crash and plummet of home values. A concurrent fall of income into our Libraries seems almost inevitable. In a way, I feel lucky. My job is safer than most. After all, the Library isn't likely to go out of business. Cindy did a little research and found that the mighty Kankakee Public Library was open throughout the decade of the Great Depression, but we can't find evidence of what cutbacks may have been made. Indeed, statistics show that during economic downturns, greater demand is put upon public services such as Libraries as people come in looking for free entertainment, job search resources and so on. Whether this is just another recession, such as the one in the late 70's, or folks are headed back to the soup lines, certainly Libraries are going to be asked to do more with less.

Steve Bertrand
Assistant Director