Challenges
- In Pittsburgh, constant efforts must be made to convince the community of the need for library funding.
- The library must balance the ongoing costs of technology with other ongoing costs (for example, the cost of one printer cartridge is the same as one new book).
- Retrofitting old buildings for new technology is expensive and time consuming. “When you are having to wire through three feet of concrete in a 100-year old building,” said one staffer, “the wiring becomes the most difficult part of the job.” The building, they point out, was in use before electricity, and there are still rotary phones in some of the departments.
