Libraries around the state look to Bond B for funds to purchase new books and pay for online services, journals and other media.
UNM's libraries - including Zimmerman, Fine Arts & Design, Parish Memorial and Centennial Science and Engineering - would receive $780,000 from this bond, said Martha Bedard, dean of University Libraries.
"We really do good things with that money by putting information in the hands of users," she said.
Bedard said the four University libraries cost about $14 million a year to operate. Journal subscriptions, online services and replacing books account for the majority of library expenses, she said.
"If we don't get the bond funding in the future, then we would have to have a really, really hard look at the journals that we subscribe to and very likely cancel some," she said. "We certainly wouldn't be able to buy the number of books that we've bought in the past. I don't have another way to find $780,000."
General obligation bonds are funded by an increase in property taxes throughout the state. If Bond B is passed, it would raise property taxes each year by 77 cents per $100,000 worth of property. This increase continues for a period of 10 years.
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"It's not related at all to sales tax, and it's purely on property, and that means if you don't own property, you are not paying for this bond," said David Giltrow, co-chairman of Bonds for Libraries. "If you're a renter, it's the person who owns the building who would pay the property tax."
He said the state would receive $11 million from the bond and give Bernalillo County $2.8 million to distribute to academic, public and tribal libraries.
Giltrow said there are about 1,000 libraries in the state and about 150 in Bernalillo County.
Academic and public libraries would each receive $3 million, and the tribal libraries would receive $2 million, he said.
Bond B is voted on every two years, and according to the secretary of state's Web site, the bond was passed in 2006 with 275,145 votes.
The funding would not go to the libraries until July 2009.
"These bonds are designed to supplement the existing monies for library books," he said. "In other words, libraries generally have an existing budget ... and it was discovered by librarians that that's really not enough."
The purchase of new books, journals and online sources is necessary for libraries to obtain updated information and expand resources for readers, Giltrow said.
"In other words, if you were to go to some school libraries, until recently, before we had these bond issues, you could pick books off the shelf ... that still talked about the Soviet Union before it split up in the late '80s ... and there would be nothing about AIDS," he said. "The reason they would have old information is because they didn't have money to buy new ones."
