Development or Winding up? An Interview Study on how Public Libraries manage Financial Cuts

The purpose of this masters thesis is to examine how managers in public libraries are managing financial cuts. Questions posed are: What strategies are used by the library manager to handle the cuts and how are the strategies being worked out? What are the consequences of the cuts? How do the managers use their library plans in the work with the cuts and how do the plans change as a consequence of the cuts? Library managers in eleven communities are interviewed about their financial cuts in 2003 and/or 2004. The result shows that cuts are made in different ways. The study analysed the managers statements with a model about strategies created by Oulton. The internal strategies used most commonly were lowering performance and reducing costs. The external strategies were limiting cuts and off-loading. Mostly the managers plan the cuts alone and make decisions on the basis of their knowledge about the activities in the library. Consequently, cuts in the budgets were realized, but the negative effect was that the users access to the library service deteriorated. This study couldnt answer the questions about library plans, only two of the communities had such a plan. Our conclusions are that the strategic planning could be better and that library plans are needed. The managers can use more performance measurements and let the staff take part in the planning. By marketing the public library in the community, the managers can find more support and possibilities to co-operate.Uppsatsnivå: