Back on June 8, 2009, the Denver Post ran a front page story, above the fold, about the Rangeview Library District's decision to abandon the Dewey Decimal System.

The day the article came out, an out-of-state friend was visiting one of our staff members. The visitor asked, "Is this actually a hot issue here in Colorado?" Our staff member kept a stern and straight face. "Absolutely," she said. "Dewey. Anti-Dewey. There will be blood."

Once a year, planned about 9 months in advance, the directors of Colorado's public libraries get together for an afternoon, an evening, and a morning to have frank conversations about what's going on in our operations, our communities, and our profession. This confabulation always happens around Memorial Day, when the rates of mountain lodges are cheap. (We hold our meetings on the Western Slope as a convenience to the many geographically isolated libraries who do such good work the other side of the Rockies.)

Most of Colorado's public libraries serve small communities. But big or small, there were some trends:

I just returned from the final "Members Council" meeting of the international library company, OCLC. Henceforth, it will move to a model based on new regional and global councils. It's the end of one era, and the beginning of another.

To many citizens, public funding is a mystery. That includes library funding. So this week I thought I'd walk through some numbers for one of our service areas that's been in the news lately: Louviers.