“Supporters of the Seattle library levy say that the $123 million measure will restore service hours, rebuild collections and maintain neglected buildings. Opponents say day-to-day operations of libraries are so important they should be prioritized in the budget — ahead of less important programs.”
“It’s no exaggeration to say that a library saved my life. As a child seeking refuge from a difficult family, I found solace at the Parkman Branch Library in Detroit, thanks to a children’s librarian named Miss Frances Whitehead. Through the books she shared with me, and the kindness she showed, she opened my world well beyond the world that I knew. By the time I was 10 years old, I knew I wanted to be a librarian when I grew up, so that I could do for other people what Miss Whitehead did for me: Inspire them with books that would feed their souls, help them satisfy their curiosity about whatever interested them and make the world a better place.”
via Nancy Pearl
“The Providence Community Library System will close its branches for a week in September to make up for a $205,000 cut in city funding. The library system announced it will close Monday, Sept. 10, through Saturday, Sept. 15. Regular hours will resume on Monday, Sept. 17. Officials say employees agreed to forego the library’s normal 401(k) contribution, preventing further cuts in service for patrons.”
via Boston Globe
“In a city facing budget deficits and reduced staffing, at least the Chicago Public Library has managed to add services and jobs without outspending its budget. The city announced Sunday that the Chicago Public Library would add four hours to Mondays in a number of locations without having to increase funding, a feat accomplished by making library staffing more efficient, officials said. “We did a major staffing evaluation of all locations and came up with a new way of how we would staff our libraries,” Chicago Public Library Commissioner Brian Bannon said.”
“Despite initiatives to centralize its workforce, the Harvard Library System will not be significantly reducing its approximately 930 person staff, according to an emailed announcement from Harvard University Library Executive Director Helen Shenton and Senior Associate Provost for the Harvard Library Mary Lee Kennedy. “We are pleased to share that, due to the Voluntary Early Retirement Incentive Program and the Schools’ careful management of vacancies, nearly all library staff members with roles designated as Harvard Library Shared Services or Support Services will have a position in the new Harvard Library organization,” Shenton and Kennedy wrote.”
“Crisis, what crisis? Despite a report earlier this week predicting that public libraries could disappear by the end of the decade, the culture minister, Ed Vaizey, hailed the “thriving library service that we have in England” as he announced a series of initiatives at Thursday’s Future of Library Services conference. Unveiling plans to boost cultural activities in libraries, automatically enrol primary school pupils in their local libraries and an ambition to put Wi-Fi in libraries across England by 2015, Vaizey claimed that the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals’ prediction of 600 library closures “regularly quoted in the media… is very wide of the mark”
via Guardian
“UC Berkeley ranks among the five best universities on the planet in part because an engineering researcher there has no trouble finding the gravity study he needs from the 1970s. An art historian doesn’t have to be in Japan to lay his hands on a 128-year-old Kyoto guidebook. And a French scholar can examine a certain 16th century manuscript on European literary academies, no problem. Yet the great university’s libraries are in trouble.”
via SF Chronicle
“Local officials and residents reacted with sadness this week to news that the city plans to close three library branches on July 2 as part of a series of city budget cuts and reduced staffing. The Library Department will be closing the Pine Point branch on Boston Road, the Liberty Street branch in Liberty Heights and the East Forest Park branch on Island Pond Road. “I wish they would keep it open,” said Madelyn Rolon, of Beacon Terrace, who was at the Pine Point branch Wednesday with her two children, Brandon Lopez, 7, and Tanisha Claudio, 16. “My son likes to read books. She gets books for projects at school. It’s sad they are going to close it.”
via masslive.com
760kfmb – “The city of San Diego’s 35 branch libraries opened on a Monday for the first time today in five years. Mayor Jerry Sanders’ office used part of a $17.8 million budget surplus in the current fiscal year to add to library hours, along with the amount of time recreation centers stay open. Those hours are set to expand further when the new fiscal year begins July 1. “For a lot of people, the library is a window to the world,” Sanders said. “With these additional hours, more residents will have more opportunities to study, learn and expand their horizons.”
NYTimes – “In the last three years, TNS has cut its Reading Recovery program, lost its assistant principal and its half-time math and literacy coaches and increased class size in every grade. The school learned this past April that it could no longer afford its library or librarian. Forty percent of TNS students qualify for free lunch, and the school pays for that diversity in an unexpected way: it’s far more difficult to raise large sums of money from its families. But the school still does not qualify for the federal Title 1 financing allocated to schools serving large percentages of low-income children. It is the public school version of the marriage penalty: diversity is largely considered a social good, but those who practice it are expected to pay, one way or another.”
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