Mississippi’s budget cuts – whose adverse impact on K-12 schools, community colleges and universities is reported almost daily – also strikes at a less noticed but popular and heavily used state-funded source of information and knowledge: public libraries.

Gov. Haley Barbour’s budget cuts so far have sliced $600,000 off the statewide appropriation for the network of libraries serving every region – and people of all ages.

That $600,000 cut, while small compared to the millions cut from other agencies, is arguably more quickly damaging to libraries’ ability to serve users because operating budgets have little room for adjustment.

State budget impacts in library systems’ budgets vary – based on the amount funded by counties’ tax sources.

In Northeast Mississippi the percentage of total budgets provided by the state ranges from 35 percent in the Northeast system (Alcorn, Tippah, Prentiss and Tishomingo counties) to 14 percent in the Lee-Itawamba system.

Every library will experience qualitative impacts –  either service employee reductions or cuts in budgets like collections, the funds used to buy new books, computers and other resources demanded by today’s library users.

As Emily LeCoz noted in her reporting in Sunday’s Journal, the cuts from the state couldn’t have come at a worse time.

Library usage is soaring. Administrators and staff are making the link between bound information and digital information, plus innovative services and programs to attract more users.

The Lee County Library in Tupelo is a good example of how cuts will affect services:

- The state cuts will take $20,000 out of the library’s budget of $1.3 million, and the impact will be felt in spending on the collections: $53,000 in a typical year, $35,000 this year.

- Library use increased from 239,905 visits in 2008 to 252,130 in 2009. Use so far in 2010 is on track to exceed the 21,000 per month average in 2009. Library director Jan Willis said he anticipates as many as 27,000 users per month during the summer, when children’s reading programs are at a peak.

Additional reductions in 2010 are expected, and even larger cuts are forecast for budget year 2011 – almost $1 million less in the proposed funding legislation making its way through the Legislature. (Follow the progress of proposed funding at http://billstatus.ls.state.ms.us/ for HB 1624.)

Libraries – all 50 systems – are as integral to our state’s intellectual infrastructure as universities and community colleges. Adequate funds must be a legislative priority.