District Library Planning in Racine County
 

Full Report in PDF format

Summary

Racine Public Library (WI) received a Library Services and Construction Act grant to study the pros and cons for district library development in Racine County in Southeastern Wisconsin.  This report outlines Library Consultant Tom Hennen’s proposals for that study.  Although 20 states have legislation allowing district libraries, Wisconsin is not one of them.  The Wisconsin Library Association (WLA) and the System and Resource Library Administrator’s Association of Wisconsin (SRLAAW) have both endorsed district. A summary of the proposed legislation is provided in chapter 8.

 Part of the purpose of the grant is to gather information on possible changes to to the district library legislation that WLA hopes to have introduced.  Note that the legislation being proposed in Wisconsin is, as is the case in all 20 states with similar legislation, permissive only.  That means that the legislature is simply allowing local units of government to form districts, not requiring them to do so.