Your Library Matters, September 2026
Montana Libraries Need Your Help
Funding Statewide Library Resource Sharing
In the 2027 Legislative Session
Bruce Newell, Helena
Dani Hess, Helena
All Montanans are big winners when their libraries share with other libraries. No single library can ever have enough books and stuff [1] to meet all their users’ needs. When libraries share, more Montanans’ needs are met. This is nothing new, to meet users’ needs, libraries have long shared with one another.
Modern era libraries began developing formal interlibrary loan (ILL) policies for sharing resources during the late nineteenth century. One hundred years later, Montana librarians begin noticing that our new networked environment offered fresh resource sharing opportunities. These new ways of sharing promised to provide more Montana’s library users with more copies of more books, about more topics, more economically than libraries attempting to serve their users exclusively from their own collection, or for that matter via traditional ILL methods. There’s a legislative stream running through these changes:
- In 1989 the Montana legislature appropriated $200,000 to reimburse libraries for interlibrary loan costs.
- Twenty years later in 2009, Montana changed the language of Montana’s ILL reimbursement statute, MCA 22-1-328, enlarging the statute’s scope from just ILL to statewide library resource sharing, but making no additional appropriation to carry out this commitment.
- By 2026, the overall need for statewide investment had grown to over $8 million dollars.
Resource sharing works for our users and for libraries alike. In order that Montana libraries statewide (not just in our largest communities, and not just along an interstate highway) can all offer resource sharing’s benefits to their users, libraries are asking the fast approaching 2027 Legislature for help extending resource sharing’s benefits to all Montanans. Here’s what a statewide investment of $8 million dollars, in addition to local libraries’ contribution, would accomplish:
- Expand access to the Montana Shared Catalog (MSC) — Helping all Montanans find the books and stuff they need, and helping Montana libraries more efficiently manage their collections
- Pay for a cost-saving courier service between libraries — Expediting the delivery of books from library to library, so that books discovered and requested on the MSC can quickly move from library to library at affordable costs. Shipping books between libraries via the USPS costs $4—5 a book. UPS and FedEx are even more expensive. Courier costs per book are about $0.70.
- Reinforce MontanaLibrary2Go, Montana’s shared e-book collection — Reducing wait times for popular titles, and expanding access to less popular but equally valuable titles.
- Expand students’ access to K-12 instructional e-books and audiobooks (SORA) — Expanding a shared digital collection of books, ebooks, audiobooks, magazines, and other library materials aimed at engaging K-12 readers.
- Fund statewide access to online educational magazines and databases (typical example subject to future selection) for K-12 and public library users — Providing full-text content from magazines, research-supporting journals, and news sources.
- Expand the Montana University System’s TRAILS Infrastructure — Improving Montanans’ access to online academic resources while reducing institutional costs.
We can think of no better way to conclude than an excellent, soon to be published introduction for a fact sheet prepared by Montanans for Libraries:
“For decades, Montana libraries have successfully found ways to provide innovative library services to patrons and communities across the state. Solutions rely on shared, scalable infrastructure made possible through collaboration. Unfortunately, the spirit of collaboration is not enough to ensure that all Montanans can access the same basic level of library service, especially in our most rural and under-resourced communities. Adequate state funding is needed to truly level the playing field and ensure relevant, reliable, and resilient library services statewide for all Montanans.”
The upcoming 2027 Legislative Session is the time to get these resource sharing funds appropriated. This will help Montana libraries continue to help their users learn and pursue Thomas Jefferson’s notion of happiness. If and when as a friend of Montana libraries you are asked to relate what your library’s resource sharing means to you, please lend your voice.
[1] ’Stuff’ includes library materials and programs such as e-books, films, magazines, children’s and adult programs, archives, exhibits, etc
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Please support Montanans For Libraries’ campaign to provide each Montanan with sufficient, twenty-first century library services.
Bruce Newell is an increasingly retired librarian. Dani Hess is employed by Central House Strategies. This essay and others like it can be found on the Montanans For Libraries website.