I think its an important service to be able to borrow materials from Minuteman libraries and have them delivered to my home library. Is there anything that I can do to help?
Yes, there are two things that library patrons can do to help. One is to let your state legislators know that you think funding resource sharing among our libraries is important. The state cut funding at a time when the demand for library service was growing. Funding for resource sharing was $4,400,000 in FY 2001. This year it is $2,000,000. At the same time, interlibrary borrowing was expanding from 424,000 items in delivery in fiscal 2003 to 2.8 million items through delivery in fiscal 2005. The second way to help is to return materials where you borrow them whenever it is convenient. Last year, more than 400,000 items were borrowed directly from one Minuteman library and dropped off at another. This is a convenience that we have willingly supported for many years. Now however, with the tremendous growth in inter library borrowing, we really need our patrons to return where they borrowed whenever they can.
