Here's some more explanation. Jackson County isn't alone...

Some follow up on the Josephine County (Oregon) library closings:
The counties of Southwestern Oregon, Jackson, Josephine and Douglas, are being devastated by the loss of timber reimbursement dollars from the feds. These are funds allocated in various ways (Title 1, Title 2, blah blah blah) from the federal treasury to the counties who lost revenue when the feds cut back on the timber harvests on the federal lands in those states.

It used to be that the more trees they cut, the more money flowed into the county piggy banks. Hundreds of millions of dollars that the counties became dependent upon, and were in danger of losing when the national forests began to shut down the BIG harvests.
The federal forest initiatives of the late 1990's and 2000 that put the screws on national forest harvests wiped out the "O&C" funds that kept schools open and roads plowed in thousands of communities.
The counties were really hurting until Senators Wyden and Craig worked out a compromise in 2000 that would was supposed to help the counties get themselves weaned off the timber revenue. The bill was the one with the Titles that gave the counties money in various ways to make up for the lost timber revenue. However, the bill only called for funding through September of 2006. The tap was turned off in September.

Senator Wyden is desperately trying to get the money flowing again. Unfortunately, there is a basic power struggle going on concerning the future of the forests and timber harvests. I am not going to get into a political discussion about it, but I think it safe to say the Bush Administration is determined to use the county funding issue as a bargaining chip in getting Congress to go along with the plan to sell millions of acres of public land. With the new Democratic Congress, things will get interesting.
One huge obstacle is the billions going to the war in you know where. A classic guns and butter situation that is just a preview of things to come.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Josephine County has lost about 25% of its revenue stream. Last year the citizens of Josephine County voted to build new libraries throughout the county, including Medford. When the library people realized what was going to happen to them, they put an operational levy before the voters. It failed. (" We just gave you millions for the library, and now you want more to operate them?") So there will be new libraries that will not open. Weird. The government of Josephine County will be discussing their library situation this spring. Best wishes to them.

In neighboring Jackson County, the main library is now open 15 hours a week. Isn't that as good as being closed?

If the feds keep the tap shut, Douglas County may be next. Douglas County gets about 60% of its operating funds from those federal dollars. I spoke with Max Leek, ex-Pocatello librarian, who now directs the Douglas County library headquartered in Roseburg. Max doesn't know what's going to happen. I used to live in Douglas County, and I know the people in the county highly value their libraries, and they have some pretty damn good ones. It's as politically conservative as Idaho, but Max says the Commissioners attitude is that they are going to find some way to keep their libraries open.