voice of bainbridge

The amazing story of the Austria House in Whistler

From the excellent BC Tyee, the story of this house brought to Whistler from Austria, that has no furnace, and no need for one. 

 

Public libraries stories in California and in New York

California Governor Jerry Brown plans to cut all state funding for the public libraries while in Los Angeles the city funding has also been cut. In New York City budget cuts were limited thanks to a Keep the library open campaign that rallied people in support. A few messages from the New York clip: Don't be afraid to raise your voice (please join me), 'I would be lost without the library" (Barbara Walters), 'Library is what makes a community a community" (Nora Ephron). But at the end of 2010 they are back in trouble (look also at the comment at the end).

Geek the library

Geek the library is an e-campaign created by the Gates Foundation to raise the awareness about the problems facing public libraries. It does not help us much except in encouraging "us" to get involved in supporting our public libraries. How is the present KRL leadership willing to have "us" involved? As for now they look extremely distant. 

What are the options to "reimagining" KRL?

The KRL Board of Trustees held a study session on December 10 about "reimagining" KRL after the defeat of the levy. The minutes are so succinct it is quite difficult to understand what was suggested. Some emphasis seems to be on "going more digital" but if I recall well what people wanted most is longer hours and KRL is choosing to go in the exact opposite direction. Still no public meeting announced to discuss with the whole community, not only a few board members and staff what KRL's future could/should be.

Public Library: It could be worse

Like in Gloucestshire according to The Guardian. That's no reason not to assess carefully how best to manage our own situation.

The Bainbridge Public Library beyond KRL

The Bainbridge Public Library is the name of the community non-profit that owns and operates the building as it does not belong to KRL. Bainbridge Island Friends of the Library is another local community group that supports the library by raising funds via booksales. Both groups demonstrate the crucial contribution of our local community to the very existence and functioning of the library.

A closer look at how each district voted about the levy: why should Bainbridge be forced to follow the choice of the other districts?

While commenting about the decision to close the library on sundays, KRL President Gail Mathison is quoted as saying; 'it sort of evens the playing field", sort of putting all libraries on the same reduced service. But what Gail Mathison (who represents South Kitsap) does not seem to take into consideration is that only two places Bainbridge and Poulsbo supported the levy. This decision intends to align all libraries to the least level of service. Obviously (and unfortunately) a majority of the people in South Kitsap, Central Kitsap and North Kitsap did not care enough about the libraries to support the levy: therefore they probably should not care to see their libraries closed on sundays. That's not the case for Bainbridge and our community that already owns the building and raises substantial amounts of extra money (via Friends of the Library and probably KRL) could very probably raise the extra funding necessary to keep the library open on sundays. As we write the KRl leadership does not see open to this solution but why should Bainbridge that was ready and willing to increase the levy support the consequences of the vote in the other districts?

Another remark is that considering the number of people who voted YES, KRL could raise enough money in each district to keep the level of service by convincing them to voluntarily give. 

Too cold to bike on Bainbridge?

While I was biking a few days ago I was asked if it was not too cold. Try Copenhagen and the amazing Cycle Chic blog.

Advocate

In 1989, Carol Perkins-de la Plassade lives happily in Paris with her French banker husband and their two daughters 12 and 9. Only one thing really upsets her: the cigarette smoke everywhere. Fed up, she joins a local Non-Smoker's Rights group and  quickly gets deeply involved in tobacco control advocacy. She finds herself at the center of the many plots and lawsuits that dominated this period.

Bonjour Bainbridge

Bonjour Bainbridge is a collection of 128 vignettes that I self-published in a book format in January 2011, via Blurb. For now I have only printed 3 copies that I circulated within the family as I still want to review its content (200 pages).

I wanted to test "BookSmart", the simplest free book publishing software provided by Blurb: it was very easy to use for someone (like me) who is not very tech-savvy and I think the final result looks fine.

The Cost? $8 per copy plus $7 for shipping,  for  a total cost of$31 (less than $11 per copy).

I am still working on finding the many typos and refining the text: that part is very time consuming. This is definitely a cheap and effective way to self-publish a book.

How many KRL cardmembers?

Jeff Brody, Director of Community Relations for KRL emails me that there are about 110,000 active KRL card holders not about 200.000 as I extrapolated from the number Peter Raffa had told me (191,286).

I certainly want to use the most relevant number. If there are 110,000 card holders, the 1800 donators would represent less than 2%.

I had not realized the Kitsap Sun had advised to to vote NO on the levy. Reading their opinion (mostly there was too much planned for new buildings) and the comments is interesting and raises some questions about what should be funded or not.

Looking at KRL prospective budget for 2011

Here is the narrative (pdf format) and here is the 2011 draft budget.

An interesting comparison is with the Spokane County Library District although their libraries are closed on saturday and sunday but open the rest of the week from 8 to 4.30 (not a schedule that would work for us). Other main difference, they passed the levy as did many other counties (something I had no idea about).

Here an article about the levy. Not that people seemed very motivated to talk about it but they were ready to vote for it.

How to raise money for KRL Libraries

In the context of the defeat of the levy to increase funding for KRL I wrote a letter that was published in the Bainbridge Review and ther Kitsap Sun advocating a KUOW like strategy. I had made the same suggestion in november 2007, when the first levy attempt was defeated: I had not been listened to. Is there a better chance this time?