The Meadville Public Library announces today that purchases for new materials have been suspended until a new budget is passed in Harrisburg.

John Brice, Executive Director of the Meadville Public Library commented on the decision: “We normally receive our state funding in January. However, due to the lack of a state budget that funding may or may not happen. In order to make sure we have enough operating cash available in January we are temporarily suspending purchases of new books and materials until then.”

The suspension on book purchases will begin on September 1, 2009 and will continue until the State passes a budget. All materials ordered before the suspension will be received and catalogued. Books purchased with Patrons Drive funds and Memorial gifts will not be suspended.

With the current state budget crisis in Harrisburg the POWER Library collection of online library resources is in danger of being eliminated. Without POWER Library, students and others will not have resources needed for homework, job training and job announcements, or current information on health and economics.

If POWER was eliminated, all Pennsylvanians would lose invaluable access to information and all taxpayers would lose out because replicating this amazing service on a one-by-one, local basis would be cost-prohibitive. On average, it would cost every school and public library $40,000 EACH to purchase the POWER package on their own. Follow the link here to take action and help save POWER Library: http://www.palibraries.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=1&subarticlenbr=64

The Meadville Public Library will be offering free Internet classes. Improving Internet skills can be fun and easy and surfing the web this summer will be a breeze!
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On November 17th, 2008 the Meadville Public Library proudly welcomes Mr. Robert D. Ilisevich, the author of Remembering Crawford County. Join us at 7p.m. to share time with this author whom has captured the history of our community.

Robert Ilisevich is a retired Professor of American History at Alliance College, and is an active archivist for the Crawford County Historical Society. He has published five local history books on Northwestern Pennsylvania, as well as numerous articles in journals, the Meadville Tribune, and the CCHS newsletter. A member of the Pennsylvania Historical Association, Ilisevich lectures on local history to civic groups and professional organizations.

In Remembering Crawford County, historian Robert D. Ilisevich has collected the best of his historical essays to look at the happenings that helped advance a community and how they influenced national events.

This event is free to the public and we welcome you to join us during Mr. Robert Ilisevich’s upcoming visit to MPL.

The Crawford County Federated Library System (CCFLS) is pleased to announce the installation of Koha Zoom Integrated Library System (ILS) catalog and circulation program at system headquarters, Meadville Public Library (MPL).

What does Koha stand for? It means “gift” in the Maori language of New Zealand. Libraries from around the world have developed and shared this gift for the past seven years. Now CCFLS is using this gift, Koha, to manage everything we do at the library. It keeps track of the library catalog, patron information, and the transaction data between patrons and the materials. The new system is all web based and is designed to incorporate library standards. Anyone with access to the Web can now search what books are available and their status, all in real time.
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