01
The renewal quote
The invoice goes up forty percent. The clause that decides it was signed in 2021, and nobody was looking.
Shelf Life
A renewal quote goes up forty percent and a small public library rebuilds its technology budget from zero. Eight episodes, one line item at a time: the contract nobody could find, the databases nobody opens, the work that never had a dollar figure, and the question they could not answer in episode one.
02
Everything, set to zero
Every line starts at nothing and has to earn its way back. First problem: nobody has a list.
03
The catalog
The biggest line on the page. What it does, what they own of it, and what it would cost to walk.
04
The databases
Cost per use, on a database nobody opened this year. Somebody has to say it in front of the person who ordered it.
05
The books you rent
eBooks. The license, the expiry date, the per-circulation meter. Nobody has a clean answer and the episode does not pretend otherwise.
06
The things not in the budget
Twenty-two years of corrections. A volunteer's spreadsheet. A column with no dollar figure in it.
07
The collection
A challenge arrives. The question is not the book. The question is who holds the authority to answer.
08
What we can answer now
The question from episode one, asked again.