Brighton Library Geek Campaign Gets Responses

"I geek the fact that there's a poster that you're allowed to write on in the middle of the library."

That is just one of the hundreds of "I geek" responses that the has received during it's Geek the Library campaign - a national campaign designed to promote awareness of library funding.

The Brighton library was established as a district library in 1995 and is authorized by voters to levy a millage. That property tax makes up 83 percent of the library's budget. In the last four years, the Brighton District Library has seen a 13 percent drop in funding due to declining property values.

The campaign is available to libraries across the country and has tips and ideas of how to promote it individually with each library's funding statistics.

Assistant Library Director Ed Rutkowski said Brighton is loosely coordinating with the Cromaine District Library in Hartland as well as the Carnegie Library in Howell and libraries in Fowlerville and Pinckney.

Rutkowski said Brighton decided to promote the campaign with posters and markers and ask patrons to write what they "geek" about because it was a practical way to get people involved while the library was doing many other things.

"We were very surprised at the response," he said. "It was really cool to see."

Rutkowski said he is in the middle of planning actual geek events at the library. The campaign will run in Livingston County libraries through October. For more information, visit geekthelibrary.org or brightonlibrary.info.