Tom Hennen's Case for Full Funding

Greetings,

Steve Coffman at LSSI, my esteemed opponent in our debate at PLA, would have us take a step back in time with what he calls "Plural Funding" on the National Public Library model. I prefer full tax support of libraries as an undeniable public good. I think that history is on my side but Publibbers are invited to hear us debate the issues on Friday March 24th at the Sheraton Boston Hotel - Independence Ballroom.

In the February 2004 issue of American Libraries, Steve Coffman urged public libraries to follow the lead of public radio and museums into "plural funding." Hennen responded in the August 2004 issue of American Libraries magazine. Hennen believes libraries are tax-supported public goods and chooses full funding. He sees Coffman's approach as a leap backwards in time that even Ben Franklin would have decried.

It was Benjamin Franklin's 300th birthday on January 17, 2006. See:
http://ben.clusty.com . Librarians everywhere celebrate Franklin's life, career, and monumental contribution to public libraries. On July 1, 1731, Franklin and a group of members from the Junto, a philosophical association, drew up "Articles of Agreement" to form a library. From this modest begining blossomed what was to become the American public library movement.

Franklin's library was a subscription library, meaning that individuals subscribe to it much as people do today to National Public Radio. The difference being that in the Library Company of Philadelphia only subscribers could use the library while for public radio anyone with a radio can listen, of course. Coffman wants us to take a step backwards in time and fund libraries on Franklin's and NPR's unwilling model. I want us to go forward, not back, as my esteemed opponent would have it - forward to basictax supported public library service.

Most observers agree that the Peterboough Public Library in New Hampshire is the oldest tax supported library in America. In 1833 the town of cast aside Franklin's subscription library notion and chose to support the library with tax money. The march of history has chosen the tax supported library ever since. Nearly all public libraries in America today use the tax support model rather than the earlier subscription model. Yet Coffman would have us go back in history to an earlier model that he now dresses up with the flavor of "plural funding."

I believe that Franklin would support my concept of full tax supported funding for today's libraries not Coffman's urging to go back rather than forward to a plural funding strategy. Full funding from tax support, supplemented of course with donations, is what modern libraries need. This,I believe.

Participants in the Hennen/Coffman debate will hear both sides of a controversial debate on the future direction of public libraries. They will also know how to pursue a plural funding strategy as opposed to a full funding strategy and how to choose the best course. Participants will also have information on at least 5 tactics to use in a full funding strategy.

For Tom Hennen's side of the debate, see:
http://www.haplr-index.com/restore_our_destiny.htm
And: http://www.haplr-index.com/

For Steve Coffman's side, see:
http://www.lssi.com/coffman%20feb.pdf and
http://www.pluralfunding.org/sal.pdf
See also: http://www.lssi.com/

Regards,

Tom

Sometimes, that dotcalmguy