Library Hours in Jeopardy!
At the Board of Library Trustees meeting Wednesday night, July 23, 2008, Chief Librarian Ginnie Cooper presented a grim picture of the FY2009 Library Budget and staffing plan. While the Library Budget will go up slightly (by $16,000), that budget includes $5.6 million in earmarked enhancements and the elimination of 74 library positions. This is a 14% reduction in the staffing for DC Public Libraries. The DC Public Library needs $2 million by October 1, 2008 or the Library will be forced to drastically cut the hours of operation of all our libraries.
Mrs. Cooper laid out the changes to the Board and the community. They include closing all Libraries on Fridays, reducing basic operating hours to 10:00 am – 6:00 pm at all branch libraries and opening 12:00 pm – 8:00 pm on days when libraries are open in the evening. Regular hours at the MLKJr Library would also change to 10:00 am – 8:00 pm. All libraries would remain open on Sundays during the school year but would all be closed on Sundays during the summer months.
There are a number of impacts that these changes would create: community groups would have difficulty holding meetings that must end by 8:00 pm; daycares and caregivers would have difficulty using their libraries in the mornings when they open later or not until noon; seniors will not have an opportunity to use the library consistently in the mornings; working families would have reeduced access to the library during the summers and commuters will find it difficult to get to their branches by 8:00 pm on the nights their library branches are open.
The Library System needs your help to appeal to the District Council to find the $2 million that will avoid this calamity. A number of things converged to create this problem and a number of promises have been broken along the way by the Council and the Administration. Our communities should not have to suffer the mistakes of our leaders.
Please, write to your councilmember today. Share this message in your community, and let’s make sure our libraries remain open and available to everyone in our community.
Comments are closed.