Comments on: Minnesota Librarians Blow $45K

By: Julie

Julie — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 01:02:40 +0000

The money came from a fund expressly for bringing an author in, if they had not spent it, it would have been lost. Do some fact checking, please.

From Neil’s site:
““It’s not from the library. It’s from the Legacy Fund, a Minnesota tax allocation that allows the library to pay market rates to bring authors to suburban libraries who otherwise wouldn’t be able to bring them in. They have to use the money now as it won’t roll over to next year and expires next month.”

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2010/05/political-football-in-teacup.html

By: Mister Dogg

Mister Dogg — Thu, 13 May 2010 12:16:50 +0000

Sad that this much money was blown in this manner.

When the original budget was set, someone should have looked at how much was being budgeted to expose suburbia to authors of national acclaim.

If I were the mayor of whomever gives approval in this situation, I would have said “whoa, what are you spending this money on.?” And if the response I got back was a comic book author who is independently wealthy already, I would have said “Nope.” We have bigger and better things to waste our money on. Try again next year.

I don’t think in the best of times libraries should be pounding money into these kinds of rat holes. There are plenty of other, more worthwhile and far reaching programs that could be asked for.

By: Mr. Kat

Mr. Kat — Thu, 13 May 2010 11:15:41 +0000

sidney, government money does not work that way. If the library does not use the money this year, then they will not get as much money for their budget next year – and government agencies cannot save money for the years when they will be short – they must spend it all and recieve the same level of money next year or give it back and risk not reciving as much next time through.

Education, libraries, anything tied to a government paycheck, typically go 11 months and 2 weeks in “OMG we don’t have enough money to even buy toilet paper!” mode to three weeks of “OMG we have to spend ALL of this money YESTERDAY!!” in the final 3 weeks before the end of the fiscal year. You’ll see all sorts of weird purchases occuring around this time frame…

500 people got a killer deal. It sounds to me like the library should have looked for a larger venue, perhaps even coordinating with the city or other civil agency to get a larger hall and allow that other venue to charge ticket prices to cover the seats. Patrons who go the library could pick free tickets up at the library, the library could give a couple tickets out to the schools or other places where this is common, and those who don’t go to the library would have to pay for their tickets at the box. Win-Win.

By: just askin

just askin — Thu, 13 May 2010 10:37:50 +0000

I’m not sure if the fact that Neil Gaiman lives near Minneapolis Minnesota make this better or worse. On the plus side at least the Library only had to reimburse him for minimal travel expenses, but on the downside maybe everyone in the TC area who wants to has already heard Neil speak.

By: sidney

sidney — Wed, 12 May 2010 12:26:51 +0000

It might have been better to lose it. Then the money could have been spent on something more necessary for the state.

By: Mel

Mel — Wed, 12 May 2010 11:33:43 +0000

I notice no one’s pointed out that this was use it or lose it money that was designated to bring authors to the library for speaking engagements, and that it was not from the library budget. Why gather all the facts when we can get outraged for no reason?

By: livlife

livlife — Wed, 12 May 2010 11:02:53 +0000

And another thing: should we maybe be worried about the precedent here? Or more to the point, should the librarians in Washington County have worried about it? Now you’ve got Joe Author who gets asked to speak. He usually does it for free, but since Neil Gaiman got $45,000 (and let’s face it, Joe is thinking, he not THAT much more famous than me) maybe he ought to charge something?

Couldn’t we be opening doors we’d rather have bolted shut?

By: livlife

livlife — Wed, 12 May 2010 11:00:35 +0000

@Ilikebooks The Hennepin County Library system has 41 branches and is something like the sixth largest public library system in the country (don’t quote me on that.) Were you perchance shooting for Washington County Library, who paid the money? They have 9 branches. Though the “main library” description you gave fits Minneapolis Central, in Hennepin County, and NOT anything in Washington County.

By: DoDo

DoDo — Tue, 11 May 2010 14:05:20 +0000

It is so hard to say, no.

J.D. Salinger was hounded to the day he died to make appearances.

Being an author is such a drag.

Being a librarian is really cool though. We will go anywhere anytime FOR FREE to talk about MARC records and the shift from AACRII to RDA.

hello

is this on?

By: Didi

Didi — Tue, 11 May 2010 13:42:22 +0000

Oh my. It would help tremendously if everyone would read Gaiman’s response to this mess. He has high fees for a reason – he doesn’t really want to do lots of speaking engagements; he prefers to write. Also, he normally reduces his fee for libraries but no one at this particular library asked him to because the funds were coming from elsewhere and had to be spent before June 2010 or they’d go away. Also, there were only 500 people there because that’s all the auditorium would hold.

I’d give a link to his blog, but the comments here don’t allow html. Which is silly. Go to journal dot neilgaiman dot com, and it’s the entry titled Political Football in a Teacup.