Westerly and Hartford Library Directors Show How It’s Done
At the Library Reform Group’s public forum on February 11, Louise Blalock, Chief Librarian of the Hartford Public Library, and Kathryn Taylor, Executive Director of the Westerly Public Library, demonstrated to a rapt audience of PPL trustees, library staff and patrons that it takes initiative, persistence, and imagination to raise money from public and private donors.
These award-winning librarians spearhead fund-raising efforts that include close collaboration with public officials, who constitute their largest donors, as is also the case in Providence. They also meet face-to-face, in a variety of settings, with individual donors. The Westerly director and others on her staff set the example for creating endowments by donating money to establish library funds themselves. Hartford Public encourages participation from area colleges and universities by appointing the presidents of these institutions to the library’s corporation.
Both Hartford and Westerly energize the community by holding a series of large fund-raising events throughout the year; these events don’t yield large sums of money, they cautioned, but they provide the library with publicity and public good will.
Louise Blalock cautioned that fund-raising efforts have to build on success, not on failure; donors want to help “light the fire, not fill the [empty] pail.” She added that Hartford Public Library encourages city officials and residents to support HPL by reminding them that “A Great City Deserves a Great Library.”
Having listened to Kathryn Taylor and Louis Blalock, it seems clear to us that “A Great Library Deserves a Great Director.” We hope that PPL will be able to emulate these excellent examples and start to raise funds more creatively and successfully.
The Library Reform Group itself has compiled a list of specific suggestions as to how PPL might improve its fund-raising record. To read them, click here. Additionally, the various Friends groups throughout the city have also offered a set of recommendations. You can read them on our blog.