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Librarians in town, recession on the agenda
Steve Miller Reporting
Chicago Sun-Times
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CHICAGO (WBBM) - More than 20,000 librarians are expected in Chicago from Friday through the middle of next week for the American Library Association's annual conference.
The president of the American Library Association, Jim Rettig, says libraries are feeling the effects of the recession: More people are using them, but funding is threatened.
Rettig says he's struck by two things.
"The dramatic increase in use of libraries across the country as the recession has deepened, and the other is, as tax revenues have shrunk the threat the funding for libraries - even though we're offering these vital services at a time when people need them more than ever."
Rettig says anything libraries are loaning - they're loaning more of.
The real crunch, he says, is for computer time.
"I think what a lot of people fail to recognize is there's a lot of on-line information that they can't just get for free through Google and the free Web.
"There's a lot of licensed content that's proprietary that libraries make available to their users. This is stuff that's helpful to K-12 education. It's helpful to business people, especially small businesses."
Rettig says it's too soon to tell what kind of an impact books on line - like the Kindle - will have on libraries.
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