Last summer, the Louisville Free Public Library set out to raise $1 million dollars. Library leadership at the time hoped to expand its collection of printed books, e-books and audiobooks to shorten wait times for digital books.
Now, LFPL is nearly there.
City leaders and library advocates announced they’ve raised $830,000 from community members and philanthropists. The campaign is part of a $1 million matching grant from the city.
Chandra Gordon, executive director of the Library Foundation, which supports LFPL programs and services and leads the fundraising campaign, said Louisvillians “have really stepped up.” A note of transparency, the Library Foundation is also a financial supporter of Louisville Public Media.
The Friends of the Louisville Free Public Library donated $100,000 to support the campaign. The nonprofit supports and advocates for all LFPL branches and its staff.
President Liz Amick said the group had some of its own funding left over last February. By the summer, the Friends of LFPL had its own matching campaign with its branch support groups to put toward LFPL’s campaign.
“Within a couple months, we had contributions from most of the branches,” Amick said. “Everybody was excited about something we could contribute to that would impact the entire system and the whole city.”
Library leaders hope the fundraising campaign will solve a common problem: long wait times for the most popular titles.
At its peak last year, the waits for 700 of the most popular digital books in the Libby app through LFPL were five months. At the same time, popular physical copies had a three-month backlog.
“When wait times grow longer, it's a sign our community supports and loves its libraries and that it wants more,” Gordon said. “This campaign is about making sure our libraries are filled to the brim with the materials that people need and that they want.”
Mayor Craig Greenberg said LFPL has added 130,000 new books to the library’s catalog so far this fiscal year. Those purchases are part of LFPL’s normal budget. Library leaders have promised to buy an additional 65,000 books if the matching campaign succeeds.
Compared to last July, city officials said wait times for e-books and audiobooks have dropped to 18 weeks at most, and average around 30 days. The average wait time for print books is now 16 days.
“That means hundreds of thousands of dollars already put to work and tens of thousands of new books and materials on the shelves and in readers' hands,” Gordon said. “That's a lot of books, and that really shortens those wait times. We're close, but we're not finished.”
