What I Want to Know About the Toledo-Lucas County Public Library

I wanted to find out some information about the Toledo-Lucas County Public Library to see if there where other options for running the library besides taxation. For one thing, it is a “free system” (except for those of us who pay taxes based on real estate, or who rent and pay the taxes of those who own the property). We could base it on “membership” but those who run a business would have a better idea about how many members we would “lose” if we divided each member’s cost on a per member basis. Can anyone propose a possible successful model other than taxation?

This link shows what a member gets from Netflix, http://www.netflix.com/HowItWorks.
Many people utilize this service (even the “poor”, I suppose). So what is it about Netflix that will make people pay for it, but might not happen with the Toledo-Lucas County Public Library? Is it because the Toledo-Lucas County Public Library is “free”? If an effort was made to switch to a “paid membership” or “rental” service from the Toledo-Lucas County Public Library what would likely occur, and how could it be planned so that the public would accept such a change? If the Toledo-Lucas County Public Library went to a paid membership what percentage of “members” would vote with their feet to forego library “services”? Would it be better to offer individual library materials for “rent”? How many members would quit if we went from a “free” library to a “rental” system?

This link, http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mpublibrary.html, looks at the recent history of libraries, and shows how “public libraries” (supported by tax dollars) came to be. If the intent of a library is to make knowledge available to anyone regardless of class or economic condition then we have achieved that goal. But what is the cost? If a class of people feel that they are unfairly bearing the economic burden of these institutions with little benefit to them then are we doing “right”? So is there a better way to provide these services without unduly burdening those who pay for it?

I am going to try to find out from the library two things: 1. How many “materials” (books, CDs, DVDs, etc.) have been loaned out each year since Toledo became part of the Toledo-Lucas County Public Library; and 2. What was the membership for each year since the formation of the Toledo-Lucas County Public Library? This might give me an idea of how much “rent” we would have to charge per item to meet a certain budget, or how much we could expect each member to pay for membership in such a “subscription library”. Of course, if half the membership was lost that might make the scheme unprofitable.