(bright music) - There are more than 600 public libraries in Illinois.

Chances are you and your family have used one or more of these for schoolwork, research, or just for the enjoyment of reading.

But do you know how your local library is funded, and how it keeps the lights on?

Randall Yelverton is the executive director of the Peoria Public Library.

He's going to update us tonight on the state of our region's largest library system, and we'll talk about the funding battle happening in Washington.

Randall, thanks for joining us.

- Thank you, Mark.

Thanks for having me.

- Appreciate it.

So you've been at the Peoria Library for how many years now?

- A little over seven years now.

- [Mark] All right, and you were in Washington before that?

- That's correct.

I was the director over at Washington District Library.

- Now, in looking at some of these numbers, I did not know how complicated it can be to fund your local public library, and the majority of the funds you get are from property taxes?

- That's correct.

- Tell us how that works.

- So every year, you'll receive your property tax statements, and about 95% of our funding comes from the generous support of those in the area, and through their property taxes.

That's where a large portion of our funding comes from.

There's also some state grants, some state support that we get annually, and then we can apply for several different grants throughout the year, so.

We also have some different charges that we collect at the library, but that's a very small portion of what we are operating on.

- Sure, so you're not getting by on fines?

- No, no.

(Mark laughs) And in fact, we are largely fine-free now at Peoria Public Library, other than for damaged items and some things like that.

- Sure.

Let's talk a little bit about federal money.

And about a year ago, the president ordered what he said was a reduction in the elements of the federal bureaucracy that he has determined are unnecessary, one of those things being the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Tell us what the Institute does, and how that affects our local libraries.

- Sure.

The IMLS supports libraries all over the country, and of their functions is to take those federal dollars and distribute them to libraries throughout the country.

We get a lot of those funds via our state library, and the state library apportions those to us in different ways.

Grants, for instance.

We have a Project Next Generation Grant that we use at our Lincoln branch that we've been getting for many years, due to innovative programming that they're doing at that location, teaching kids from the area how to use different technology.

And we believed this last year that those funds were no longer going to be available to us.

Thanks to some court action, those funds are being freed back up and are now being distributed to libraries.

- Okay.

And is that being contested also, or can we see that in court again?

- To the best of my knowledge, that hasn't been contested yet.

Now, that may be inaccurate.

I do know that we're going to be getting a PNG, Project Next Generation check, coming up here soon.

So I know a lot of those funds are freed up.

But that, funds have, the Institute of Museum and Library Science, excuse me, services, has downgraded.

They still don't have all their staff back in their offices in Washington, I don't believe.

So there's still a lot of work to do.

They do a lot of advocacy and other great things for the library, and they aren't back up to full effect on that.

- Well, how big of a deal is it, let's say, if that money didn't come through, how big of a deal is it for Peoria, and would that maybe affect a smaller or larger library branch differently?

- Sure.

If we had not received that funding for several years as well, it would've affected our ability to loan books, not just those that are in our collection, but to loan books throughout the area.

We have a great local system that distributes books in libraries throughout Central Illinois, and a lot of the IMLS funding goes to that.

We had a reserve fund in that cooperative that we're part of, but if we didn't get those IMLS funds for several years, you wouldn't have as great an opportunity to come in and get some materials that aren't in our library, from our brother and sister libraries throughout the area.

It is a great service, us being able to extend what we can offer through all that sharing, - You know, with the federal government kind of attacking that resource that you have, there's been other things.

I know in Illinois we have a ban on book banning - Yes.

- But around the country, it's still a thing.

And not only is it still a thing, but it's been growing in the past number of years.

- Yes.

- What does it mean to have a ban on book banning in Illinois for libraries?

- Well, we're very happy here in Illinois that we have a Secretary of State who is so supportive of libraries, both for spearheading that ban on book bans bill out of his office, helping get that on the floor and passed and then signed, as well as investing in the safety of libraries.

There's a grant that the state library is now offering for safety upgrades to libraries.

We're going to be submitting for that grant for some new security equipment at the library, for example.

But the Secretary of State has been tremendously supportive of libraries and librarians, but we want to preserve people's ability to read what they want, and not have books banned out of the library.

Because if you are banning some materials, you're not only saying, "I don't want to read them," you're saying, "Also those in my community can't read them."

And that is not helpful for anyone in the community.

It shrinks the amount of materials that people can have, and the ideas that they can be exposed to, and decide on their own what they agree with, what they would like to read.

And so, you know, book bans are an essential threat to freedom here in the country.

- I wonder if that's had an effect on, you know, there's a few states that have a ban on book bans, but I wonder if that's had an effect on people who wanna be librarians, or work at a library in one of these states that still book banning.

I don't know if they'd wanna work there, necessarily.

- It is, you know, people don't go into libraries for, you know, a lot of personal gain, or great success.

We're not, you know, that is not why people choose to go in the libraries primarily.

It is because they believe in the freedom to read these ideals, sharing these materials with the public, making sure that the public can get the best information they can.

And, you know, it's an essential function of the libraries.

But if librarians start feeling under threat, or feel that their position may bring them some danger, or it causes a social standing that is undermined, then yes, I think that can be a big problem.

It can be a threat to working in libraries.

- And most of the subject matter, I think the vast majority of the subject matter, that some people have an issue with are LGBTQ issues, and race issues.

And even though, you know, we can't ban a book here in the Peoria Public Library, do you still have folks that say, "Hey, I saw this book here, I don't think it should be here."

And how do you deal with that?

- Sure.

And we have a request for reconsideration process, whereby people can come in and say, "Hey, we don't believe that this material is appropriate for the library."

And that is still an avenue that people can pursue.

You know, we ask them to read the materials.

We ask them to take a look at it, and let us know why they believe it's inappropriate, and then we will review the materials.

But we don't want to keep those materials out of people's hands.

You know, we want people to decide for themselves, and we wanna preserve that right for the individual to decide what they want to read.

- You mentioned the Secretary of State earlier.

He's the head librarian in the States, for folks who didn't know that.

And he's been supportive of you, and we've got the ban on book ban.

So do you feel that maybe libraries in Illinois have a leg up on maybe some of the other states, in terms of the state government being supportive, and again, not having book bans?

- Oh, certainly.

I think this is, I think it's a great, I think Illinois and Central Illinois are great places to be a librarian because of the support we receive from our communities, and from the statewide support we get for preserving these fundamental rights that libraries help promote and preserve.

- Our Central Illinois libraries, it seems like a lot of changes have been happening lately.

I know where I live in Normal, the library's gone through some upgrades.

The Bloomington Public Library, lots of upgrades.

- Yeah.

- What's on the horizon for Peoria Public Libraries?

You have the main branch downtown, and then four or five others.

- We have four locations in addition to our main library, so five locations in total.

We are currently in the middle of our strategic plan.

We are creating a strategic plan for the next three years.

We're at that point of the strategic plan cycle, and we are looking at how we can upgrade our facilities, our services, and, you know, improve internal culture as well.

So we're looking holistically at the whole library.

We've done the surveying of the community.

We have talked to our staff and the public about what they want, and we are putting together some core activities that we can participate in as part of that strategic plan.

And we're looking at facilities upgrades as well.

Potential maker spaces where people can come in and use different tools to create things, digital creation, audio, video, things like that.

We want to be offering that here in Peoria.

So we're looking at ways that we can make these long-term goals possible.

- And if you haven't been to the library in a long time, the Peoria Public Library has a lot more than just books.

I mean, we're talking eBooks, other physical media, CDs, DVDs, all that kind of fun stuff.

How important is it that the library system in general kind of evolves with society?

You know, we're all electronic now.

- Yes.

- So I guess you have to take that into consideration when we're trying to get people to read books.

It may not be a physical book, but it's still the content, just on a phone or an iPad.

- Sure.

A lot of people are using libraries here locally and nationally.

They may never even step foot in the door, but we're also going to be their library, right?

We have digital materials, databases where you can search different types of materials.

For instance, news from Peoria's past.

You may want to check out eBooks, audio books, videos.

We have movies that are available online that you can stream through different services.

We collect all of those in our website.

And yeah, you don't even have to step foot in the door, and you have these resources readily available to you.

I will say, beyond books as well, we also have great public meeting spaces.

You can come in the library, you can plan a meeting.

We have video conferencing at all locations, so we wanna make sure people are aware of that.

We also have the good old fashioned study rooms, or you can just sit out at one of our tables and study as well.

So we have a great space that is available to the public as well, to use as they would like.

- And one thing I think was kind of the beginning of the library evolving with the times were just computers.

- Mm-hmm.

- Public computers for anyone to use.

How important is that resource, you know, especially maybe for someone who can't afford a computer, and needs to try and find a job.

You almost have to do everything electronically these days.

- Sure, there are a lot of people who do not have access to a computer, or online resources.

So a lot of folks we do have coming into the library, we are their way to connect to the internet.

So if you don't have an email address, you don't have internet connection at home, you may not be able to apply for some jobs, because that is the way so much of that is being done now.

Or you need complete your taxes, you need to fill out other government forms.

It's getting more and more where you have to be online to do that.

And we offer those folks a great resource that they may not otherwise have.

Then a lot of folks will come in and just use those computers for fun, as well.

So we have a lot of visitors who just want to relax and do something online, you know, look at social media, and they wouldn't have access to that otherwise.

And think about what an important resource that is for so many of us, you know, entertainment and pleasure that you get from online services - With eBooks being out there, do you have any idea how many of your customers will read an ebook compared to a physical book?

- We don't have a one-to-one comparison, but we are seeing, I think recently about a third of our circulation, books that are leaving the library, being checked out, were digital books in our collection.

There is an issue with the cost of digital materials, though.

We are charged much more for digital materials in the library from publishers.

They put some costs associated with them that we don't have for print materials.

So let's say you want to get the latest bestseller.

MSRP suggests a retail price, it's about $32.

We, with discounts from our wholesalers, can get that for about $23 on average.

23, $24.

To get an ebook copy might be up to $65.

And we don't own that copy.

- Mm.

- We are renting it from these different services that work with publishers.

And oftentimes, that copy can only be loaned out, let's say 26 times, and then you have to purchase it again at $65.

- Interesting.

- Or you only buy that right for a year.

So effectively, a lot of publishers are trying, I believe, to make it so that libraries are not the primary, or are not a source for these materials.

They're pricing us out of the market.

- Hmm.

- So that people will go elsewhere for these digital materials.

We're making it work now, but long term, particularly if these prices are creeping up, it's going to be an issue.

- I've never thought about that.

If you get a physical book in, do you have to pay some kind of a publishing fee, royalty fee, anything like that?

- We'll just pay the, we'll pay, like I said, about $24 for a hardcover bestseller.

And thanks to the law of first sale, right?

That's a bedrock to library services.

We can continue to loan that out.

We own it.

- Okay.

- We can do what we want to with it.

We're not violating copyright.

It's like how you can go and sell items at a used bookstore, right?

And it's not violating copyright.

That's your right to do it.

And that's at the bedrock of what libraries are doing.

But publishers are kind of circumventing that with how they do the digital distribution.

They want to be monetizing, I think, these checkouts that they have not been able to do in the past, like attach a cost to that that wasn't there before.

- Interesting.

So if someone comes in, and do you still take a lot of donations, or old books, things like that?

- Mm-hmm.

- [Mark] Can someone donate an eBook, or is that even possible?

- I do not think it's possible.

- [Mark] Okay.

- There are, although we haven't gotten into this space much, there are ways to publish, or for libraries to make locally, you know, self-published items, including eBooks, available.

But that would be about it.

- So you're at the mercy, really, of an industry.

- Yeah.

- Now do they work with, I mean, they're not coming just to the Peoria Public Library and saying, "Hey, let's negotiate."

I mean, is there a bigger- - Right.

- Bigger service there?

- I mean, basically the, the services that we work with, the third parties, negotiate with the publishers, and then we are kind of left to work with those terms.

- But those third parties are representing a lot of different libraries- - Yes.

- All over the country.

- And you will, well, they're selling to us.

- Okay.

- They're for profit.

And then you're seeing, throughout the media, a bit in publishing as well, further consolidation, right?

So the market is shrinking.

Penguin and Random House are together now, and that is just a huge portion of publishing.

A lot of materials come out from that publisher, as well as all its subsidiaries.

So it's getting smaller and smaller.

So the market's not being very helpful in that aspect.

- Yeah, that's interesting.

Never thought about any of that when I went into the library to get a book or a CD.

Let's talk about some fun things that the library has on the horizon.

The return of the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

- Yes.

- Let's talk about that.

- It's finally coming back to the area.

We're really excited to have the spelling bee here.

We've been working with multiple partners, including the county and the city, to make this happen.

On March 28th, we're going to have 59 spellers from throughout the area at the Gateway building.

Unfortunately, it's not a public event, but we are bringing the spellers, their families and friends into this space to compete for an opportunity to represent Peoria and the Peoria Public Library at the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, DC.

- Is that gonna be televised at all?

- I believe WTVP is putting together some- - Hey, that's us (both laughing) - Is putting together some of that event for airing, I believe.

- Okay.

Good.

- So yeah.

But not the whole, it's gonna be multiple hours long.

- Sure, sure.

Well, that's exciting.

You know, what's that mean for a kid who wins a regional spelling bee, and then has a chance to go to DC for the big prize?

- We are excited to be a part of that because, you know, spelling, learning words, that's what we do at the library.

That's one of our core values, you know, promoting learning.

And we are excited that we were able to finally bring this back to the area.

Prior to this, kids had to compete from our area in a massive online spelling test.

And they weren't necessarily able to show off their skills live and to others in the area.

So this is a great opportunity for them to do that.

And it will allow us to send somebody from our area as well.

And we're excited for that speller.

We can't wait to see who that is, and to be able to send them off to compete at this event.

- Yeah, that'll be fun.

Another thing I personally am excited about is the newspaper digitization, easy for me to say.

(Randall laughing) Project that you're doing with the Journal Star.

- Uh-huh.

- Tell us about that.

- So we've been working on this for many years, and working on the terms with the publisher, News Bank, who brings us daily, via our website, news sources from all over the country, all over the world.

You can come into the library, you can read newspapers from across the country, across the world.

But they had digitized the Peoria Journal Star, and I never realized it's had multiple titles throughout the area, or throughout the ages, but the Journal Star, and it is now from 1951 to 2017, you can do full tech searches.

So in the past, it was a little bit of a needle in a haystack.

- Yeah.

- Let's say we had people coming into the library, and they're asking for a certain obituary.

They may know the date, they may not know where it's located in the paper, but we would help them search, through microfilm.

But it's still, like I said, a bit of a needle in a haystack.

Now you can come in, and you can type in a keyword, say, for instance, the person's last name, and it will find it for you very quickly, and you will see the paper as it was, so you can have a copy of that.

You can see the day it happened.

Let's say you wanna see your birthday, what happened in Peoria on that day.

You can look it up, it's full text, see the paper as it was.

So it's really exciting.

We think there's great opportunity to not only use it for personal resource, but in the classroom, 'cause if you have a Peoria Public Library card, you can access it from anywhere.

We've been working on this, trying to make this happen for many years.

And thanks to help from the friends of the Peoria Public Library, we were able to finally kick this off and get it done.

- That's great.

Speaking of Friends of the Peoria Public Library, tell me what they do and their importance.

- So they support our mission wholeheartedly, and they help us make projects a reality.

They help tremendously with our summer reading program, for instance, every year, which is starting in June.

Plant a seed to read.

That is starting in June, please sign up.

We have things for adults and children, summer reading activities.

But the Friends of the Peoria Public Library are fantastic.

We bring different projects to them, and they help support us financially.

- The library does a lot for the community.

Just for example, in February, being Black History Month, you guys had a ton of things going on.

- Mm-hmm.

- You know, it's not only, hey, read a book about Black history, but- - Right.

- Talks, and programs, and things like that.

How do you handle all that, in addition to, you know, this massive amount of books and everything else?

- Well, thankfully I have a fantastic staff, right?

I set a vision, we set priorities, and then the staff make it happen.

The ideas that they bring to us for programming, for things they want to do in their library, they're tremendous, and they help make those things happen, due to their hard work and ingenuity and imaginations.

We provide the resources, and they take it and run with it.

So it's fantastic.

- Yeah, they do a good job.

Well, I'm sure you get asked this question all the time, but again, with the rise of technology, and again, you can do everything in the palm of your hand, and kids have their video games and all that stuff.

How does a library in 2026 compete with all those other options that are out there?

And especially how do we get the kids to come in- - Sure.

- Or at least log on.

- Yeah.

- And read?

- Well, you know, we do have a lot of young readers at the library.

We're very glad to see so many folks bringing in their young children to the library too, at our story times, and just for browsing.

So we try and create an environment that is welcoming so that we can bring in folks at a young age, build that love of reading.

As I mentioned, we have summer reading coming up.

That is a great way to promote reading throughout the summer, but then build that love of reading that lasts beyond that.

But we're very happy with folks reading our digital resources as well.

We want people using these resources.

We want to get them in people's hands.

And that's a way that some people prefer to read.

We have a lot of folks who just like to read graphic novels.

That's fine.

We're happy to provide them.

But we want folks reading, and we have lots of ways to get materials to them, so.

- You mentioned talking about budgets for the future and things like that.

What does the Peoria Public Library not have, in your opinion, that you would like it to have?

You know, maybe comparing to other libraries in the area?

What's on your wishlist?

- Well, as I talked earlier about maker spaces, that's something we're gonna be putting more of our resources into in the future.

But we don't want to just be a space for books.

We want to be a space where people can learn all kinds of different skills.

So we want to be the place where people are coming to learn how to use some of these different, for instance, digital and audio editing tools.

We want to be a place where those who do not maybe have access to these resources, or want to try them out, could come into the library, use these resources, learn and grow in those skills.

So, I think there's a big, there's a lot of room for us to move into that space of skill development.

We're doing a lot of it right now, with the computer labs.

We offer free internet access.

But I think there are, there's a big opportunity there that we're gonna be pursuing over the next few years.

- I've always wondered, as a consumer of books.

- Mm-hmm?

- How do you keep up with all the new books that are coming out?

How do you, you only have a limited amount of space that you can have.

Do you cycle in books?

You know, as you get more, do you say, "Okay, nobody's really reading this one, we're gonna take it out, because we only have so much physical space."

How does that work?

- Sure.

It's similar to a retail idea that you don't have unlimited shelf space, right?

So you bring in new materials.

We we read review resources, all kinds of different ones, to find both what we think is going to be popular and what is of a high quality.

And oftentimes they intersect.

But yeah, we want to be providing with people, we want to provide people what they want, as well as some of the best resources out there.

So just research, and making sure we get those books on the shelf.

And then we do have to take off ones that nobody's reading anymore.

- Yeah.

Are eBooks a benefit to libraries in terms of, hey, you know, maybe that'll free up some space.

We don't need to have two copies of the same book.

- Yes, certainly for particularly older series, right?

You wanna start at book one.

We don't have the room to have volumes one through 25, necessarily.

But I will say that also the ability to share with libraries throughout the area as well is tremendous in helping fill in some of those gaps.

But yes, eBooks are helping in that.

- Before we go, I'm curious, what are the most popular genres these days?

And does that change from time to time, or is it kind of steady, like, everybody likes this, or people kind of like that?

- Certainly one thing that has come out, thanks to fan fiction, people writing fan fiction about "Harry Potter", different fantasy series.

Those have been developed into entire genres.

One that's big right now is romantasy.

Very, very big.

And those are on the bestsellers list as well.

But some of the old standbys are doing great.

Biographies, thrillers.

People aren't reading westerns much anymore.

- [Mark] Okay.

- We don't have as much shelf shelf space for that.

But you know, all the old standbys.

But romantasy is one of the very hot topics right now.

Hot genres.

- Well, I'll have to look into that, I guess.

(Randall laughs) Randall Yelverton, executive director of the Peoria Public Library, We appreciate your time today, and best of luck in the future.

- Thank you.

- All right, thank you for joining us.

We appreciate it.

If you wanna watch this segment again or share it on social media, just go to WTVP.org.

Have a great night.

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