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Closing SE Regional: A closer look at the county’s options

Even after trimming about $341,000 from operations and through reduced hours, Wake County staff still needed to cut between $750,000 and $800,000 to approach the roughly $1.2 million target required by the county manager.

A cut that large meant shutting branches, said Frank Cope, director of the county’s Community Services Department, which includes the library system. (Read the story, “County points to usage data for choosing Garner’s library.”)

The question became: Which ones do we close?

To help decide, the county examined hundreds of combinations of branch closings. Of those, 87 met the target trim. The 87 combinations were then evaluated using six criteria that measured use or potential use.

The criteria scores are charted in the attached spreadsheet, courtesy of the Wake County Community Services Department.

Download usage data spreadsheet

The six criteria included:

1. Visitors per hour = (Dr/HR)
2. Residences within a 10-minute drive = (# Houses)
3. Residences with at least one library card within 10 minutes = (# cardhouse)
4. Circulation per hour = (Circ Hr/Open)
5. Computer sessions per hour = (PC sessions hr)
6. The number of people currently within a 10-minute drive of a branch but would be farther than 10 minutes from any branch if that library closed = (people impacted)

Notes:

• SE Regional’s scores are highlighted in yellow.
• Cells in red are those criteria in which SE Regional scored higher than the total score of the libraries in that combination.

Related articles:

• Garner to hold second community meeting about Southeast Regional Library
• Garner library’s possible closing to be discussed at community meeting
• County: Closing Garner library a ‘strategy’ that may not be needed; Commissioner vows to keep it open

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