Milwaukee public library policy change

I am a big fan of the Milwaukee Public Library System. I go twice a week. Going to the library to borrow books, movies, games and even puppets is one of the ways the my family of 6 saves money. Well coming with the new year is a policy change concerning holds. I am not sure how I feel yet but so far it is not good.

The City of Milwaukee and the Milwaukee Public Library faced some difficult budgetary choices for 2008. In order to preserve the most critical library services, purchase new and replacement materials, and support staffing levels to maintain library hours, a policy change affecting media holds requests has been initiated.

Holds requests have more than doubled since 2002, and have exceeded 500,000 in 2007. Of the growing number of holds requests received by the library, media requests represent a significant portion and require considerable staff time to locate and process. Staffing available to process these requests has not increased to meet the demand. The following change is necessary to meet City budget reduction targets, and will result in more popular media items becoming available for MPL customers.

Effective January 2, 2008:

The following media items owned by the Milwaukee Public Library will no longer be holdable:

1. All feature films and television programs on DVD and VHS
2. Music CDs in the young adult and adult collections

The following media items owned by the Milwaukee Public Library will continue to be holdable:

1. All non-fiction DVDs and videos classified as educational, informational and/or
instructional
2. All children’s CDs

Other items such as books, audio books, and CD-ROMs will continue to be holdable.
However, the maximum number of all items that may be requested at any one time is now 20 per library card holder, down from 40.