This week I'd like to do a roundup of some library financial issues.

First, effective June 1, we doubled the fines for overdue materials. We continue to offer a few days grace for such materials -- and if you give us your email address, we'll even remind you to bring things back the day before they are due.

In brief, fines for most materials went from a nickel a day to a dime a day. Our fines do max out for most materials at $5 per item. While this probably won't be a big money maker for us, we hope it will encourage people to help us keep our materials moving. There's a lot of demand for them these days.

by Rochelle Logan and Jamie LaRue

A couple of years ago the Douglas County Manager of Economic Development, Meme Martin, met with library representatives to talk about the business databases we buy. She wanted to know if we would consider augmenting those subscription services to support new "economic gardening" efforts at Highlands Ranch and Castle Rock.

Our interest was piqued. We wanted to know more about economic gardening. (It means, in brief, growing the seeds of businesses that are already planted in the local community.)

Libraries exist to serve their communities -- residents and business owners alike. And we're always interested in mutually beneficial partnerships.

On April 22, the Douglas County Libraries invited our volunteers to a modest recognition dinner. The occasion: looking back on 2008 library volunteerism. It was a record-breaker.

A few weeks ago I gave a talk up in Golden. Later, a journalism student interviewed me. Was there still a place for the library, he wanted to know, in the age of the Internet?

I told him that I've been asked that by a lot of reporters over the years. But it has a particular poignancy to it now. Before this young man, the last person to ask me worked for the Rocky Mountain News. (The financially troubled Rocky, as surely everyone now knows, recently shut down operations after failure to find a buyer.)