ONONDAGA COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY
FREE DIRECT ACCESS PLAN (90.3)

1. Describe how all individuals residing within the boundaries of the system but outside a member public library’s chartered service area will receive library services.

The Onondaga County Public Library is chartered to serve all of Onondaga County, and all county taxpayers are taxed for library service; technically, Onondaga County has no residents in unchartered areas.  A small percent of the residents live outside of charter areas for individual member libraries, but several circumstances ensure service for these individuals.  Primary among them is that Onondaga County Public Library serves a compact geography—no residents is more than several minutes drive from a chartered library, or, really, much more than a half-hour drive from the Central Library.  Moreover, Onondaga County libraries have a  history of resource and facilities sharing dating back to 1976, and enhanced recently with our migration to Dynix.  The system libraries are dedicated to seamless boundaries; that is, all system libraries treat all system cardholders equally, without restrictions on or charges for services.  Furthermore, the Onondaga County Public Library and several members provide traveling collections to nursing homes. Senior centers and the like, several member libraries provide service delivery to the homebound, and OCPL provides a service whereby items are mailed to individuals who are shut-in without routine access to transportation.

2. Describe how the system will assure that those persons living within the system boundaries in an area where a member library chooses to withdraw from the system, or where a chartered and registered library was never a member of the system, will be served by the system.

Onondaga County libraries have one card, and one service standard.  Although the county contains no chartered and registered libraries that do not belong to the system, there is one area with a not-chartered-by-current-standards, not-registered library (Skaneateles), and its residents receive county library service through many OCPL libraries, primarily Marcellus, Elbridge, Jordon, Onondaga Free, and Central Library.  As noted above, going back to 1976, system libraries have a tradition of seamless access to all in the system charter area.  The same would be true in the unlikely event that a chartered library chose to drop out of the system.  Because users of all libraries have become accustomed to free access and open resource sharing, it is unlikely that the clientele of a library would be agreeable to a ;to a library’s decision to “go it alone.”  If one did, however, its users, from a system viewpoint, would be like those from Skaneateles.

3. Describe what the system considers “serious inequities and hardships” and the criteria used by the system to make the determination.

If “serious inequities and hardships” are defined through the language of 90.3, as “those conditions which adversely affected resident borrowers of member libraries,” the system does not consider them to exist.  Again, the system is used to decades of seamless boundaries.  Some libraries more than others feel a strain from use by county members no from the library’s individual charter area, but nowhere is the problems such that it impacts resident borrowers significantly.  The criteria used are statistics from the year-end Dynix patron usage reports in conjunction with the opinions of the member library directors.

4. Describe what constitutes excessive out of chartered service area borrowing in the system.

Given the current state of affairs as a base, taken from the year-end statistics from 1998, the OCPL member libraries do not believe that there is “excessive out of chartered service area borrowing in the system.”  They do not feel that either crossover or service to users from unchartered territories negatively affect service to those they are chartered to serve.  Again, OCPL has long been dedicated to seamless access, and this is a situation that they system wants to perpetuate.

5. Describe the unserved and underserved populations within the system.

a. Describe the criteria used by the system to identify libraries as having an inadequate level of local income to support the delivery of acceptable library service (underserved).  List those libraries so identified.
b. Describe the actions the system will take to expand the availability of library service to unserved and underserved individuals residing within the boundaries of the system.
c. Provide a timetable for such actions.
d. Identify who will be responsible for carrying out these actions.

Since Onondaga County Public Library is chartered to serve all of Onondaga County, and all county taxpayers are taxed for library services, there are no unserved areas within the county.  In addition, most member libraries received money from towns and school districts to provide library services beyond there chartered to service areas.  As a result, less than 2% of the county’s residents living outside of the city of Syracuse are not within a specific member’s paid to serve population.

As a whole the per capita library service expenditure for the 18 member libraries is $24.50.  This is below the 1995 average statewide figure.  However, accurately calculating an individual library’s rate is difficult since most of the libraries receiving funding from entities larger than their chartered to serve areas and these entities often fund more than one library.  At the individual library level per capita figures based on chartered to serve populations would be misleading for most libraries.

The reality is that all of the libraries, whether above or below the statewide level, need increased funding in order to provide the level of library service that residents deserve.  Libraries are aware of and make use of their funding options including school district and municipal referendums.  The effort to secure better funding is an ongoing effort and system assistance is available in rethinking options, developing strategies, making presentations or designing promotional pieces.

Since the inception of the system in 1976, all system libraries, in cooperation with each other and with OCPL, have worked to eliminate barriers to library use and to encourage county residents to think of each library as their neighborhood library.  It has been and continues to be the role of OCPL to expand library service by maximizing resources and providing economies of scale.

6. Describe the conditions under which modifications to the free direct access plan can be made:

a. Without the prior approval of the Commissioner of Education
b. With the prior approval of the Commissioner of Education

The member libraries do not feel that a problem is ever likely to arise here.  If at some future point a member library feels that it is being used unfairly by out of chartered service area borrowers and if there is a 25% deterioration in crossover figures or service to users from unchartered territory figures from the base, as described in #4, that library can appeal to the Member Libraries Directors Association for redress.  If the Association agrees that a problem exists, certain simple restrictions may be approved, stipulating however that access to facilities and core collections would always remain, and that charging for cards would not be considered.  If a solution cannot be reached by MLDA that satisfied the library’s concern, the library would propose further restrictions to the free access plan to the System, along with evidence and documentation; proposed solutions would then go to the System Board of Trustees, and then on to the Commissioner of Education.

7. Describe how the system will assure that member libraries are complying with the system free direct access plan approved by a majority of member libraries.

The system will distribute the plan once it has been approved by the member boards and the system boards along with explanation of the forces behind it, the process whereby it was approved, and the need for compliance.  As already noted, the OCPL libraries are already in compliance.  The member libraries have a strong organization (Member Libraries Directors Association) that even now deals with substantive issues among the members.  In the (hard to imagine) event that a library went into purposeful non-compliance, the system would address the issue tactfully through the Systems Liaison Consultant.

8. Describe how the system obtained member library input to the plan for free direct access.

The plan was formulated by a committee of six member library directors and two systems staff from OCPL, having already been discussed at a Member Library Directors Association meeting.  It was then formally discussed and approved by unanimous vote, with a quorum in attendance, at the September 7 MLDA meeting.  It was then sent out to the member libraries for submission to their boards.

Seventeen of the eighteen member library boards have voted to approve the plan.  They are as follows:

The OCPL System Board ratified the plan at its January 19, 2000 meeting.

Respectfully submitted, 1/26/2000

__________________________________
Lawrence J. Frank
Executive Director
Onondaga County Public Library
___________________________________
Bert Schmidt
President, Board of Trustees
Onondaga County Public Library

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