Booked up

For Okemos resident Hirten the literary cliché “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times” is especially fitting.

The best of times is her recent appointment to director. Hirten, 60,  hasbeen with CADL for nine years, starting as a public service librarianin Okemos. Most recently, she served as the associate director ofpublic services and then as assistant director, overseeing theoperations of the library’s 13 branches which serve more than 20 localmunicipalities. For the past six months, she was the interim director. 

Now, for the worst of times. Hirten said the biggestchallenge to the library system is budgeting in an era of droppingtaxable value of property. (Libraries are primarily funded by a tax ormillage on property value. The millage is on a four-year cycle and isup for renewal by voters in 2014.)

“We are trimming everywhere we can and building a rainy-day fund,” she said.

“Our revenue has dropped and we are being very creative in the way we look at services.”

The new director said she is committed to finding ways to save money that patrons won’t notice.

She said that due to the lag time in figuring propertytax assessments that she expects the next couple years to be “evenworse.” Although next year’s budget is only preliminary, it is expectedto hover at $11 million — down from this year’s $12.4 million. Thelibrary system employs 240 workers.

Hirten said she has three priorities for the coming year:defining core services, building the number of card holders andfocusing on establishing more community partnerships. “We need todefine the core services of the library and put our energy in them,”she said. 

She added that the library is looking at instituting fines on late books: “We have come to that conclusion.”

The library assesses fines for late videos and for book replacement or damage, but has not collected fees on overdue books.

Hirten said she loves her job. “It was one of those things I wanted to be as a child. I really thought it would be a great job.”

She received her library sciences degree from theUniversity of Maryland. She moved to Lansing with her husband, MickeyHirten, executive editor of the Lansing State Journal.

Hirten said people’s perception of “the dusty oldlibrary, with old stuff” is a thing of the past. Library cardholdersare just as likely to visit the library to use computers; they can alsodownload e-books.

Hirten said she recently downloaded the latest “MaiseDobbs” mystery, a moody World War I whodunit, to her Nook. But she alsohas a stack of traditional books on her bedside table.