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The article focuses on factors that impact the economy and the role they play in the effectiveness of fund-raising efforts. It is noted that identifying and nurturing prospective donors is hard work and time consuming, and the return on that investment is higher in a healthy economy. While it is true that there is nothing that is immediately alarming about the state of the economy, there are indicators that suggest all is not what is seems. The author in this article believes that bubbles in any market are never a good thing, but perhaps they are unavoidable, cyclical, and natural. He recounts that when the stock market bubble popped in the late 1990s, ripples were felt far and wide, even if only slightly. He witnessed a substantial donor become slow to uphold their philanthropic commitment. In many ways, he thinks the real estate market is in a similar situation today. He believes that a housing boom is not historically unprecedented, nor necessarily a bad thing. The most important concern for him about the current housing boom is the number of investors that are purchasing a property or properties other than a primary residence. Another concern is the manner by which buyers are coming by the money to make these purchases.

The article presents information about the closure of a public library. Often, when a business closes, it is because business has fallen off and customers no longer want or need what is being sold. When it is a public library that is the subject of a closure, again it is usually because demographics have changed in an urban context, and merely a branch needs to close, or be relocated, or consolidated with another location. Rarely do one find a case where a library is closed solely as a result of a shortage of revenue, but that is exactly what happened recently in Salinas, California. Apparently, facing a 9 million dollars budget shortfall, the library failed to obtain the votes needed to institute. As a result, 33 librarians will be laid off, and three libraries closed indefinitely. The community didn't want the library to close as many users being from lower income families rely heavily on library services. Even the American Library Association adopted a resolution opposing the closure of the libraries.

The article presents the author's views on Google Inc.'s right to digitize and disseminate copyrighted text. The author states that Google should digitize entire books for superior access and indexing. Michael Keller, Stanford University' head librarian, states that when a university digitized its card catalog, use of the collection jumped 50 percent.

The article presents the author's views on library services. According to the author, many public institutions only focus on the portion of the budget that is earmarked for them. The author states that one should be persistent, and willing to look into every activity and service that the library performs.

The author reflects on providing for a financial support. He cites on Starbucks Corp. for making a low-budget production film, which might be a good suggestion that it could have also be done to fund the library for financial support. He points out about the collection development policy for the library is important and items on the library should be retained.

The article reports on the renewal of the U.S. Patriot Act of 2001 that unveils the issue about the right to personal privacy and intellectual freedom in the U.S. last December 2005. In addition to this issue, the secret surveillance program of the National Security Agency's became publicly known. Further, the Senate intended to exclude some libraries from National Security Letters that demands libraries to turn over information. The author argued on these secrecy issues and the growing appearance of unlawfulness behind the wire tapping program.

The article focuses on the staff satisfaction survey regarding the library's personnel management. The results indicated that one of the areas that management were found troubling is the area of career development. In response, the library director scheduled meetings to discuss about this rating. In the discussion, another attendee proclaimed that the organization provides the job, but the individual is responsible for career development. Further, the author suggests that in order to grow in a profession, employee's initiative to get training, education, and cutting edge skills is necessary.

The article discusses issues which should be addressed in the development of an emergency contingency plan. Employees and their managers need to know how to communicate with each other in case of an emergency. It is important to have back up services which are on a different power grid than the primary institution. Backups need to be accessible from alternate power grids or by other communication services.

The article reflects on the concern of Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan on the state of the United States economy. Although Greenspan claimed that rebuilding activities after Hurricane Katrina will improve the gross domestic product, the purchasing power has weakened. The budget increase will not address the shortage in goods and services. This is exemplified by the financial condition of university libraries in Kenya. Inflation has weakened the Kenya shilling which subsequently led to the increased cost of library materials. This situation left very little money for the salaries of school staff.

The article focuses on the ever-increasing demands of library users. In this ever-changing environment, some of the things one can be certain of are the need for more staff, space, and money for libraries. Libraries are ever striving to do more and more while, at best, maintaining current levels of staff and resources. The two most important goals are to increase library funding, or make the use of current resources more efficient. Jerry Nichols' contribution in this issue draws attention to a situation in New York State where revenue, collected to support local libraries for years, was left unrealized. Similarly, Andrew Itedjere's article brings to light what can happen when a Nigerian university doesn't support its library--monetarily or intellectually. While a system has been implemented requiring library users to pay a registration fee, the deemphasized importance of library collections for research has imposed a barrier to the library to realize fully needed funds to support service, collections, and technology. Khalid Mahmood and his colleagues suggest another approach in their article, which is charging library visitors for services rendered.

The article discusses issues related to funding of libraries. Endangered species, protected nature reserves, or anything that impacts the use and resources of public lands, all impact local businesses financially. Sometimes these effects on the economy are positive, and sometimes they are negative. Two examples of endangered species that have been embroiled in controversy over capitalism vs. environmentalism are the snail darter and the northern spotted owl. In order to save an animal, resources are taken out of the economy. woodpecker is concerned, it appears that there will be more funds available, but they are not going to find their way into any library budgets if library administrators do not become involved in their local governments to argue the case for supporting, or increasing support for the library. Libraries are more than just books, buildings, and staff. They can be used as a resource in reeducating people who are faced with a mid-life career change, centers of research, and tourism information centers.

Presents an introduction to the May 2005 issue of the journal "Bottom Line: Managing Library Finances."

The article author feels unhappy that librarians don't do enough of forecasting, which in turn affects the libraries financially. Perhaps the single most important change that people should embrace is that libraries are a business. They need to operate with an awareness towards profits and losses, discontinue services that have little or no return from our investment like money, staff, resources, and time and embrace new initiatives that are needed by the users and are profitable. Of course, profits can be measured monetarily. They can also be measured in other ways. Providing users with the services important to them can profit them. There should absolutely be profit in inter-library loan services, and others, above the mere cost of the transaction. The goods owned vary widely from library to library, but the chief resource that comes to mind is images. Many libraries own collections of postcards, photographs, artwork, and ephemera to name but a few. These collections are both interesting and graphic in nature. Often times, they contain scarce and unique materials. The author believes that untapped profits exist in many of these collections.