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For many years, academic librarians worked in a fiscal environment of rapidly increasing budgets. Management of growth was the major problem. Today, though, most academic librarians face “steady‐state”—or stagnant—budgets. This situation, more pronounced in recent years, has been with us for more than a decade, a fact most librarians and university administrators have been slow to recognize. These budgets require new fiscal management techniques whose key words are cost containment, substitution, choice, and priorities.

This year Gaye Rizzo, the librarian of the Wilson Branch of the Windsor (Conn.) Public Library, received the Special Achievement Award from the Connecticut Library Association. The award recognized her devotion to service. The Wilson Public Library is a small branch library in a multicultural part of the town. The library has maintained its role in the neighborhood as a meeting place, even while that role has been diminishing elsewhere in the face of demands for cost‐effectiveness and efficiency. Rizzo's library is a perfect example of a small library making the most of a limited budget.

Presents a comparison between the two modes of information delivery and discusses the costs involved, along with their place in the library budget. Cost recovery has become a hot issue, but must be considered within the library’s mission. Considers various responses and their consequences, including the results of using commercial services to meet library goals. Offers a methodology for determining the library’s policy decisions. Legal and financial ramifications are included in this consideration. Recommends careful examination of goals and objectives in setting into place either procedure.

The state of the U.S. economy is causing some media pundits to issue gloomy reports deploring the decline of manufacturing and the concomitant growth of the service sector. There is no question that our economy is changing — and changing rapidly.

While we are by now used to reading about the financial problems faced by libraries, most news arrives piecemeal, about one library or another, and we seldom put it all together. Having clipped items about libraries from the Hartford Courant for some months, I thought to take them out of the file and look them over. They spell out a serious and deteriorating situation.

In May and June, 1991, the College and University Library Association (CULA) conducted a quick mail survey on library cost containment and downsizing, focusing on changes between 1989–90 and 1990–91. Although the survey would not meet the rigorous demands of statistical accuracy, the responses should be of interest to most mid‐sized libraries. CULA members are academic libraries from comprehensive institutions with graduate programs. The fourteen resondents included public and private universities and technical institutes, from 11 states and two commonwealths.

The Productivity Oversight Committee of Norfolk, Va., recognizes a good idea when it sees one. An award was given to the Norfolk Public Library, where the children's department had proposed saving $18,000 by buying a rotating collection of story hour books, sending the kits to the library's 11 neighborhood branches, instead of purchasing multiple copies. In recognition, the library was given a ten percent bonus of $1,800 to help implement the idea.

Copyright Matters. The proposed Copyright Reform Act of 1993 (HR 847, and S 373) incorporates several procedural changes. Notably, it makes the Register of Copyright a Presidential appointment rather than an appointee of the Librarian of Congress. While this may seem inconsequential, it is simply part of a process that would split the Copyright Office away from the Library of Congress. Among the other proposed changes are elimination of the need to apply for registration before filing a copyright infringement claim, and the abolishment of the preregistration requirement for statutory damages. Among other effects, it would remove from depository status a very high proportion of the books, films, and recordings currently received by the Library of Congress. This would mean that the library would have to purchase these materials at a cost of several million dollars each year, and it would also reduce the materials available for foreign exchange, often the only means of acquiring foreign materials.

The administration's fiscal year 1993 budget proposes a 76 percent cut in Department of Education library programs. The only program remaining is $35 million for the Library Services and Construction Act Title I, adult literacy activities. The same approach has been taken to the Higher Education Act, where all library programs receive zero funding, and the library fellowship program has been consolidated with other graduate fellowship programs. This follows last year's proposals, and Congress may act to restore funds.

Deferred maintenance is endemic in higher education and all levels of government. Too many librarians work in poor physical conditions, and as a result, the services that are supplied to users are not as good as they should be. Even though each year there are many new libraries, additions, and renovations, many continue to exist in suboptimal conditions, with crowded bookshelves, little reading space, and inadequate electrical wiring. As if that were not enough, many changes are required to accommodate the needs of the handicapped. States have been trying to help out with federal funds, but those funds can go only so far. If the present administration has its way, they will vanish along with other Library Services and Construction Act programs “that have served their purpose.”