Library system seeking private sources of funds

Jennifer Knight

Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2003 | 8:47 a.m.

After failing to secure public dollars to expand the county's library system, district officials are now turning to private sources for help.

An ambitious plan to raise $30 million in private money over 10 years will be presented to Las Vegas-Clark County Library District trustees on Thursday.

The money would be used to add programs and update outmoded facilities at the county's 24 libraries.

"If people waited for the right time to go out and ask people to support them philanthropically, it would never be done," said Suzanne Hackett-Morgan, development director for the library district. "This is a trend among public libraries to start private library foundations to augment their funding."

The library foundation received its nonprofit status this month.

Plans for the fund-raising campaign come after voters defeated a $51.6 million bond initiative to generate enough revenue for the library district to build and hire staff for four new libraries with an additional $9 million to run day-to-day operations.

That initiative was proposed in response to growth in the district, which has gone from about 500,000 visits from patrons 12 years ago to about 5.3 million a year.

Some of the money raised through private donations might pay for projects that would have been covered by the failed bond initiative, but it will not fully replace those funds, library Executive Director Daniel Walters said.

"The initiative can't possibly take the place of what the bond issue would have paid for," Walters said. "Even if we had money drop out of the sky to build new buildings, we still wouldn't have the money to run the facility."

Aside from building four new libraries, the bond initiative called for reorganizing and remodeling some of the larger libraries in the area.

Among those in need are the Mesquite Library, the Goodsprings Library and the Las Vegas Library on Las Vegas Boulevard North near Cashman Field.

"We were thinking about making a teen area for our teenage users to have their own space and do their own thing," said Art Cabrales, branch manager of the Las Vegas Library. "But (the failed bond initiative) just kind of left us standing where we were. There wasn't any room for growth."

Board trustees meet at 6 p.m. Thursday at Sunrise Library, 5400 Harris Ave.