How Dallas plans to reinvent its library system with regional hubs, smaller staff
Dallas leaders want to cut $2.6 million from the city’s library budget without closing any libraries. Their latest plan would slash dozens of jobs and designate five libraries as flagship hubs while others operate with reduced hours and staff.
A proposal from city staff in January suggested closing four neighborhood libraries across the city while adopting the regional flagship model. But the idea of closing libraries didn’t fly with council members and residents.
The backlash overshadowed what the regional model is intended to accomplish, Dallas Public Library Director Manya Shorr said. The flagship libraries would operate seven days a week and offer added services such as adult learning, GED preparation and citizenship classes.
Last month, the City Council’s Quality of Life, Arts and Culture Committee directed Shorr to move forward with a plan to shift to the regional model while keeping all 29 Dallas libraries open.
“Residents may not understand the full vision yet,” Shorr told The Dallas Morning News, “but flagships give them something they do not have now, which is vibrant library spaces that are open when they need them.”
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Pros and cons of regional models
Regional library models have been adopted nationwide, with cities turning to them for a range of reasons, from reducing costs and improving efficiency to expanding services and accommodating population growth.
The regional model in Dallas would keep the J. Erik Jonsson Central Library as the system’s primary anchor.
Five flagship libraries in the first year would be designed to operate as regional hubs, open seven days a week with evening service hours.
The Bachman Lake Branch, Vickery Park Branch, Fretz Park Branch, Hampton-Illinois Branch and Pleasant Grove Branch would serve as the regional hubs.
These models have pros and cons, depending on how and why they are adopted, said Sam Helmick, president of the American Library Association, the world’s largest library association.
Regional hubs can make financial sense for library systems under pressure, allowing them to pool staff, expand programs and keep a few buildings state-of-the-art, Helmick said. A regional model can replace a patchwork of varying hours and service levels at many small branches with more uniform hours and predictable service offerings.
“This consistency makes it easier for residents to know what to expect no matter which hub they use,” Helmick said.
The tradeoff, Helmick argued, is that when the model is driven by budget cuts instead of community needs, it can strip services from the neighborhoods that rely on them most.
Neighborhood branches tend to reflect the specific character and needs of their immediate communities, Helmick said. Moving to larger regional hubs can dilute that hyperlocal identity and make the system feel more distant or generic.
More than 55% of Dallas residents are library card holders. And the system issued about Yet at the turn of the century, city libraries drew about 2.5 million visitors a year. Last year that number dipped below 2 million, a nearly 25% drop reflecting the changing ways people use libraries.
How regional libraries work in Jacksonville
The changes in Dallas could be similar to those in Jacksonville, Fla., which made its first moves toward regional libraries in the 1980s. Today, the system has 21 branches and four flagship libraries.
The city has a population of about 1 million, and its library system has an operating budget of about $41 million. Dallas, with about 1.3 million residents, has a library operating budget of about $43 million.
In Jacksonville, the regional locations are equipped with more resources and staff and offer longer hours to serve a larger service area.
They help alleviate pressure on smaller branch locations, which tend to serve neighborhood populations typically within a one- to two-mile radius, said Lauren Ferro with the Jacksonville Library.
Residents might still go to the local library for story time and community-specific events, but to the flagships for intensive teen workshops and advanced financial literacy workshops.
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In addition to serving a larger geographic area, the regional libraries are typically larger facilities that can offer extended hours, larger collections, more study and meeting space, and a wider variety of programming.
These locations also have more librarians and staff, including dedicated adult services and youth and teen services teams. While branch locations serve all age groups, they do so in a more generalized way, whereas regional locations can provide more focused support and subject-matter expertise.
Regional libraries also function as central hubs within their service areas. They help support nearby branches with staffing when needed and create more consistency in services across locations.
“This structure helps us be more flexible with resources while still meeting the needs of Jacksonville’s different communities,” said Ferro.
What Dallas is proposing
There are no easy options if Dallas wants to adopt a regional model and keep all its branches open while facing a $2.6 million budget shortfall, said Denise McGovern, executive director of the Friends of the Dallas Public Library.
The library system employs about 400 people and spends about $500,000 per library each year.
One option for closing the budget gap would be cutting hours uniformly across all branches so that every location remains open but offers less access. But any plan is likely to include dozens of job cuts.
Shorr, Dallas library director, said the biggest impact of the flagship model would fall on library employees because the library budget is “mostly people and buildings.”
Under the original January proposal, the plan to close some branches and shift to a regional system would have eliminated up to 32 full-time-equivalent positions, with only two staff members from each closed location reassigned to help staff the new flagship libraries. The remaining positions at those branches would have been eliminated.
She said that because the City Council has now directed her not to close any buildings, she still needs to find $2.6 million in savings — but without the reduced costs associated with utilities, security and maintenance.
In that scenario, she warned, the number of eliminated positions could potentially double because all required reductions would have to come from staffing rather than buildings.
A recent survey conducted by Friends of the Dallas Public Library in partnership with the Dallas Public Library showed Dallas residents rely heavily on neighborhood libraries and overwhelmingly support increasing funding rather than closing branches.
But The Friends are concerned about either route, and they are calling council members to restore the library budget.
Reduced hours mean less access and fewer opportunities, especially for students and communities that rely on nearby branches, McGovern said.
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McGovern also tied restoring the library budget to prevent job losses within the library system, which in turn supports the broader city economy.
“I really want the library to be part of the conversation of what Dallas looks like in five years, 10 years,” McGovern said.
The City Council has the final vote on funding for the library department. The city’s budget is scheduled for approval in September. Beyond the library cuts, city leaders are trying to plug up a $34 million shortfall in the budget.
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