top:  Reif makes her presentation;
above:  Members of the Library Board;
below: Commissioners Donna Gebicke &
Jack Russell; bottom: Commissioners Larry
Jarboe and Dan Raley.

“She’s a go-getter,” Commissioner Larry Jarboe (R. Golden Beach) said describing the woman whose favorite saying is “Nothing great is achieved without enthusiasm.”

Katleen Reif, Director of cash-strapped St. Mary’s Public Libraries, appeared at the Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) meeting to make an impassioned appeal, “We are behind the national norm; we are behind Calvert County.”

“The national average for purchase of new materials each year is $4.09 per capita, we roughly spend $2.90 per capita,” Reif told The Bay Net at her office later Tuesday. “Calvert spent $3.64 two years ago,” she said.

The St. Mary’s commissioners’ board cut Reif’s request for an increase in the library budget down by $35,000.  An increase would have allowed the library system to cope with growing demands.  This essentially means those working for the libraries will not get cost of living allowance (COLA) and merit benefits in line with the rest of the county employees.

The cut also means the library can not afford to hire a part-time assistant to help serve the 500 patrons who check out more than 1,000 items on Sunday afternoons when the Lexington Park library is so packed with customers that the staff has to run like hamsters. The patrons will have to wait longer for assistance.

The entirety of the county’s more than $2 million appropriation for the library, one of the most used public services, goes toward personnel expenditures of the library system. Expenses such as utilities, new materials, equipment and operations are met through grants, fines and fees and a small amount of state funding.

The library system’s “A Report to Our Community 2007” bared interesting facts about the growth and diversity in the community. “The board of library trustees reprinted the local cookbook, 300 Years of Black Cooking in St. Mary’s County. In just one year the first printing of 1,000 copies was completely sold out.”To accommodate growing demand from the Hispanic population, the library initiated Spanish story-times and Spanish translations of brochures and applications.

Reif presented the board with figures detailing the ever-growing use of the library. Library visits shot up from 515,912 in 2005 to 563,609 in 2006, an increase of nine percent. “This year so far the increase is 10 percent,” Reif said. 

Likewise, the quantity of material checked out is more than a million; this year’s respective increase is 14%.  Computer users continue to increase significantly, marking an increase of 24 percent this year. From just 98,900 computer users in 2005, the number jumped to 126,310 in 2006.

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