My name is Alicia Gibb and I am the current board president of the Boulder Library Foundation. The Foundation was incorporated 46 years ago as a way for the Boulder community to provide financial support to the library.
Since our inception, our often quiet, yet critical support has grown from a handful of activities to funding nearly 90% of today’s library programs. In fact, over the past five years we have contributed more than $1.8M to library programming.
While we are grateful for the generosity that the community has shown through a history of contributions to our Foundation, we can’t help but wonder: What if the Foundation couldn’t sustain the level of funding we’ve been fortunate to make the past several years? What if, given the extreme global health and economic crisis we are all facing, we couldn’t provide any funds moving forward?
Would the library’s cultural, literacy, and creative programs go away? What would happen to our tremendously popular BLDG 61 Makerspace. Not to mention the need to expand our library in our community – like NoBo, would we just not build it?
Our board has come to the clear realization that providing our current level of funding for what is often very basic library programming is simply not sustainable for our organization. As such, we strongly support the work of the Library Champions and we are here today to challenge you, our elected officials, to thoroughly review their recommendations and let the public’s voice be heard at the ballot box.
For too long the City has deferred taking steps to adequately fund existing library programs. Now is the time to vote on a plan that fully funds library operations so that our Foundation can refocus on supporting the creative and innovative ideas that will help define our library for the next generation.
This City Council has the opportunity to set in motion a positive change that will serve this community of library lovers for generations to come.
Thank you for your time, Alicia Gibb
Board President
Boulder Library Foundation
