It's a chapter the Capital Area District Library had hoped they wouldn't have to start.

"We were very disappointed with the results," says the library's executive director Sue Hill.

Voters in Ingham County Tuesday turned down a nearly $94 million, 20-year millage for the library system-- meant to repair aging libraries and build new ones.

And in DeWitt, their library millage failed, too.

Those were two of the only millages to fail, while 911-emergency millages and farm-land millages passed.

"It could be a sign it's not a good time for library millages in general, we really don't know," says analyst Jeff Williams of Public Sector Consultants.

Williams says when money is tight, voters only want to shell out cash for what they consider necessities.

"Voters are carefully weighing critical need, infrastructure and public safety, but also money amount and length of time-- all of that goes into the equation."

But he says CADL's millage was likely just too expensive and lengthy for voters to financially justify right now.

"It wasn't 911," Williams says. "It was a library and the library will continue to function."

But library supporters say even though these millages didn't pass, that doesn't mean people will stop funding creative outlets.

"We've always had strong support for operating millages, and based on that, that support will continue," Hill says.

Hill says library use has gone up 200 percent in the past seven years-- but not enough of those patrons thought they could afford the millage.

This doesn't necessarily mean, however, that people will not pass library millages (or other creative, arts millages) from here on out. Williams says even in tough economic times, people still want to support the arts. But he says the millages must be more manageable for people to do so. Smaller amounts for shorter amounts of time-- then millages for services like libraries will be more likely to pass.