Sorry, We Don't Carry Twilight: Port Chester-Rye Brook Library Tightens Belt After $16,000 Budget Cut

Sorry, readers, but you won't have any luck finding Twilight at the Port Chester-Rye Brook Public Library.

Ditto for new novels by Jonathan Franzen, David Mitchell or Charlaine Harris.

Faced with a $16,000 budget cut, the library's been forced to make some tough choices about the books and magazines it carries, and the most noticeable change is on the new releases shelf, library officials say.

The library's budget is $109,000, down from $125,000 in 2009. The library's fiscal year runs from June 1 to May 31. Funds from the budget are used to acquire all books and magazines, from adult fiction and non-fiction, to children's books, e-books and periodicals.

"We've had to cut more and more over the past couple of years," said Stacey Harris, who serves as one of the reference librarians.

From 2008 to 2009, the number adult non-fiction books dropped from 33,000 to 30,000, according to a report filed with the Westchester Library System.

There were 1,000 fewer adult books total this year compared to last year. Some of those books were lost or stolen, while some were rotated out because of wear and have not been replaced in the library's collection.

Typically, the library spends more on fiction than non-fiction, but that's no longer the rule as library staff try to make do with less cash to buy books.

"We had to cut down the monthly fiction budget to the point that all we can buy is New York Times bestsellers and items with multiple holds on them," Harris said.

Among the casualties are popular fiction books like the Twilight saga.

"There are far fewer books in the newer book area," Harris said. "Not the new and hot things everyone wants to read right now."

As for the big sellers, the folks behind the desk do make sure to keep popular authors like James Patterson in stock, but where they used to usually try to keep two or more copies available for check-out, the team is now unable to keep more than one on the shelf at a time.

Even old favorites like Catcher in the Rye or A Tale of Two Cities seem to have gotten partially lost in the shuffle.

"When a copy of one of the classic stories gets too beaten up to take out, we have a difficult time finding the money to buy new ones," Harris said.

That's not to say that the students of Port Chester and Rye Brook had a hard time finding their summer reading books. Harris said if a book is on a school reading list, Port Chester-Rye Brook Library makes sure those titles are prioritized. The library also keeps a stock of SAT prep books and other academically useful titles.

Still, there have been other painful cuts, and they're not all confined to book titles. Activities like the summer reading program have been cut or downsized, and an annual ceremony honoring voracious young readers was eliminated this year to save money.

"We've had to curtail services [to the summer reading program.] There were also no medals awarded, as they were in the past," Library Director Robin Lettieri said.

And while library staffers aren't happy about the budget cuts, they're learning creative new ways to spend less and acting more like curators than store shelve stockers.

"We are still buying books," she said. "We are just being a little more selective in which ones to purchase."