A n n u a l R e p o r t 2 0 0 1 - 2 0 0 2

From the Executive Director

Dear Friends:

This report reviews BCR's activities for the past fiscal year and includes a snapshot of our financial condition on June 30. This was a year marked by innovation and achievement for both the BCR network and our member libraries across the region. BCR was able to strengthen existing services, improve internal organization and begin implementing a wide range of new services. Central to all these endeavors is our enduring commitment to help the library community share resources and provide the most cost-effective access to high-quality, online information resources.

This was a year in which more libraries used more BCR services than ever before. Our membership grew by more than 18 percent and, like many of our member libraries, BCR was challenged by the need to expand services with a very limited increase in budget. Without adding new staff we provided training and technical support for 165 new member libraries and successfully introduced a number of new database services.

In late spring it became clear that the fiscal crisis facing state governments across the West would have a significant negative impact on library funding in most BCR member states. After discussions with the BCR Board of Trustees about how we might help our members in this crisis, the management team began to investigate the feasibility of further reducing overhead costs. By year's end, redundancies in the administration of reference services and OCLC core services had been reduced by combining them into a single Member Services Division, and the Business Office was successfully merged with Administrative Services. The management team had begun to look into how these savings could be passed along as price reductions for our member libraries.

I am sure you will share with me the pleasure of knowing that BCR continues to be both financially healthy and increasingly efficient. BCR's administrative expenses have declined significantly over the last four years. During the same period, we reduced the average network surcharge every year and still managed to increase network equity and expand our service programs. The number of permanent BCR staff positions remains the same as it was 12 years ago, but we are serving more than 300 additional member libraries and more than 2,000 smaller institutions that use our statewide group purchase arrangements.

The increasingly complex technological milieu in which libraries exist and the current fiscal problems in most Western states make cost-effective resource sharing and networking imperative. BCR continues to seek out new products and services and to lower costs so that our members can flourish in this difficult environment.

With strong backing by hundreds of librarians across the region, the help of a creative and energetic Board of Trustees and the hard work of the staff, we were again able to meet all of the BCR service goals for last year. With your continuing support and advice, BCR can look forward with confidence to meeting the many new challenges of library networking in the 21st century.

David Brunell,
Executive Director

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