Marshall County Tribune: Local News: Library feels economic pinch (08/08/08)

Kendra Welsh of Petersburg takes a break from the heat to catch up on her reading at the Marshall County Memorial Library. The library's operating budget has remained flat while useage and demand for new programs continue to grow, according to Director Jan Allen.

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As director of the Marshall County Memorial Library, Jan Allen has had to become adept at making do or simply doing without. For modern day librarians, it's a skill that in many ways has taken on an importance equal to, if not greater than, that of mastering the subtleties of the Dewey Decimal System.

While the national economy continues to limp along somewhere between merely anemic and outright recession, local governments increasingly are looking for places to balance their shrinking budgets. Libraries make tempting targets.

For the full story, see Friday's Tribune.