More Fallout from Local Library Budget Cuts

Patrons of most New York Public Library branches will have to check their libraries' opening hours: starting February 16, service hour reductions will take effect at 58 locations. Blame Mayor Bloomberg's $5.9 million cut in library funding for this latest hardship.

In happier NYPL news, the system's St. Agnes Branch is set to reopen on February 11th after undergoing a top-to-bottom renovation.

Ups and Downs at Queens Library

The era of extended weekend service may have come to a close. While all three New York City library systems had managed to increase service hours during the recession, Queens Library is the first to reverse this course. Beginning in February, 14 branches will be open Monday to Friday only.

But not all news is bad news for Queens Library this week. The Long Island City branch's Literacy Zone project has received a windfall grant from the New York State Department of Education. A new Welcome Center will include comprehensive literacy services and support a full-time case manager to "provide pathways out of poverty for individuals and families."

What other wonders and terrors have been visited upon us in the last month?

• More termites were discovered at Brooklyn Public Library's Fort Hamilton branch, delaying its reopening until Fall 2010.
  
• The NY Times' Paper Cuts blog profiled the Ottendorfer Library in recognition of its 125th birthday.
• Professional development requirements for New York State Public Librarian Certification are now more rigorous.
• Long Island University is looking for a new Dean of University Libraries.
• And the biggee: the New York State Legislature cut Library Aid by $4.2 million. Major ouch.
  

Mid-Year Budget Crisis Threatens Library Funding

New York legislators are set to work overtime next week to reduce the State's $3.2 billion budget deficit. Governor Patterson's proposed plan includes a $3.4 million cut to Library Aid, a reduction that has public library advocates justifiably concerned. Despite New York Library Association's compelling testimony at the November 5th Senate Budget Hearing, the final outcome appears grim. Brooklyn Public Library and others urge you to contact your State Representatives and express your opposition. Time is short!

The Brooklyn Public Library Layoff Debacle

Yesterday, the Daily News reported that Brooklyn Public Library laid off 13 non-union employees to alleviate a portion of its $5.5 million budget shortfall. This news comes rather late; the terminations took place back on July 6. There has, however, been some not-so-local media coverage of this story that's been brewing for nearly two weeks.

On August 9, the Washington Post profiled the career-coaching and outplacement firm Five O'Clock Club in a lengthy article entitled "The Art of Letting Employees Go." Turns out, Brooklyn Public Library hired these downsizing specialists to assist with their layoff process and Post reporter Eli Saslow went along for the ride. His article includes some rather specific descriptions of the effected employees, even noting their client numbers with Five O'Clock Club. Big mistake.

Presumably, complaints by the 13 staffers and/or their still-employed colleagues were severe enough to warrant a flurry of apologies, accusations, and denials by BPL execs, Five O'Clock Club, and the Post. Library Journal deftly outlines the situation in this article which, in turn, elicited this response by the Post's ombudsman. Not only did Saslow all but identify the laid off employees by name, he may have added too much "color" to his story:

Contrary to Saslow’s description of Hall gulping two Tylenol, [Club president Kate] Wendleton said: “Kim does not pop Tylenol – ever.” She denied Saslow’s claim that Club employees get bonuses “almost every month.” She even denied his description of their offices being located “across from a laundry room where tenants come and go in their pajamas.”

He said, she said! All finger-pointing aside, I think journalists ought to remember that librarians take privacy issues quite seriously.

Library Deathwatch: 92nd Street Y

The 92nd Street Y's Buttenwieser Library will close at the end of the month, 79 years after first opening its doors. The Library's 30,000 books will be dispersed throughout the building and a small, Wi-Fi equipped reading room is planned for the ground level. Job cuts are certain.

I learned of the impending closure last week from this strangely-focused and generally maddening City Room article. I love City Room, but sometimes their quest for quantity and speed triumphs over quality. In this case, the writer interviewed the Y's executive director, a patron, and a Yeshiva University professor, but no Buttenwieser librarians. Then there's his decision to frame the article with some mallarcky about Homer and e-books, culminating in this spurious conclusion: "...the community center’s transition to a more computer-centric model is emblematic of the sometimes painful merger of the analog and digital worlds." It's 2009! Administrators looking to reinvent their libraries for the 21st century have countless successful models on which to base their redesign. As more than one commenter noted, it's all about the MONEY and, possibly, some kind of premium office space land-grab.

Rant over. If you'd like to read a balanced article on the subject, click over to the Jewish Week.

Donnell Library in Suspended Animation

New York Public Library's stalled-out deal with Orient-Express Hotels has been reaffirmed, according to City Room. Donnell Library was dealt in 2007, but the hotel chain suspended its payments earlier this year, citing financial difficulties. The sale will now close in June 2011. That's right: four years after the original agreement and three years hence the library's shuttering. Great planning!

Columbia Closes Four Science Libraries

Here's a major library consolidation announcement from my now-former employer, Columbia University Libraries. The four libraries in question were scheduled to close upon the completion of a new science library within the Northwest Corner Building at 120th and Broadway, but that timetable was modified due to economic imperatives. So it goes.

City Council Preserves 6-Day Library Service

Wow! I'm shocked and awed and I'm sure you are, too! From City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn's press release:

Six day library service, a long standing priority of Speaker Quinn and Council Members, will be maintained at libraries across the City. The $46.5 million dollar restoration will allow libraries to avoid layoffs and ensure that New Yorkers have access to critically important job training services during the economic downturn, in addition to preserving access to vital services such as literacy programs and increased access to technology.

“Restoring funding to our City's public libraries proves Speaker Quinn's deep and abiding commitment to all that libraries promote: employment, literacy, community activism and so much more,” said Libraries Subcommittee Chair Vincent Gentile. “Fully funded libraries help communities and residents weather economic hardship, and on behalf of the tens of thousands of supporters of public libraries, I want to thank the Speaker for helping to keep neighborhoods and households strong in the coming fiscal year.”

“Despite the hardships facing our city, I’m proud to say that we’ve reached a budget agreement that makes difficult but necessary decisions to keep our city afloat through this crisis,” said Councilman Domenic M. Recchia, Jr., Chair of the Committee on Cultural Affairs, Libraries & International Intergroup Relations. “We’ve avoided devastating cuts to our cultural institutions, which are a major economic engine, generating jobs, tourism and tax revenue. We’ve maintained our commitment to cultural educational programs, like Urban Advantage and the Cultural After School Adventure Program. I’m also pleased to announce we’re making a major investment in our library system. Not only are we avoiding layoffs, but New Yorkers will still have access to their libraries six days a week. That means access to free services like technology and job training that are so important, now more than ever.”

Call-in Thursday

Brooklyn Public Library invites you to dial-in your activism this Thursday. From the Take Action: Save Brooklyn Public Library Facebook group:

Thursday, May 21, 2009 will be the day that hundreds of concerned citizens will be making phone calls to our mayor and our city council members.

Let your voice be heard: The loss of library services, the closing of branches, and lay-offs are NOT an option, especially when Brooklyn needs its libraries more than ever.

Not sure who your local council member is? Simply type in your address and borough into this form. Click on "Find my City Council Member" to view your representative's phone number.

Mayor Bloomberg's office can be reached by calling 311.

In addition, we have included a number of talking points that you may find helpful when calling your council member or the mayor:

Mayor Bloomberg’s budget proposal for the upcoming fiscal year, if adopted, would spell disaster for public library users in Brooklyn and around the city. The proposed budget includes an approximately 20% funding cut for all three city library systems. Brooklyn Public Library would face a $14 million budget gap that would result in:

• 175 library staff layoffs, resulting in fewer programs and services for patrons
• Reduced weekday service, no Saturday service at most branches, and no Sunday service anywhere in Brooklyn.
• 185,000 fewer books, DVDs, CDs, and other library materials

Public libraries are needed more than ever in tough economic times. We are one of the few places where people can find free books, films, music, and entertainment as well as free job search assistance. It is vital that the city budget recognizes the value of public libraries to our community.

Please participate in this important event so that Brooklyn Public Library can continue to provide you and your community with excellent service. Feel free to invite as many people to this event as you wish.

Many thanks,
Your Friends at Brooklyn Public Library

Take Action! Help Save Our Libraries

Have you been hiding in a cave? Secret bunker? Canada? Here's the bad news, little bear: Mayor Bloomberg's proposed 2010 budget calls for a 22% cut in funding for New York City's public libraries. All three systems have mounted some form of response, but they need your help. Here's what you can do:

• Write to your City Council Member via this New York Public Library link
  
• Email Mayor Bloomberg and let him know, in 300 words or less, why library service cuts are unacceptable to you and your community
• Sign Queens Library's online petition
• Sign City Councilman Vincent J. Gentile's Save NYC Public Libraries petition
  
• Donate to Brooklyn Public Library's Support Our Shelves campaign, NYPL's Keep Your Library Open campaign, and/or Queens Library's Buy-a-Book campaign
  
• Join the Save NYC Libraries Facebook group

Economic Anguish, Google Under the Legal Microscope & More

A smorgasborg of library media coverage from the past few days:

Gothamist sent their photographer to the "New York Public Library's main branch." (I guess they're as averse as I am to calling the former Humanities & Social Sciences Library the Stephen A. Schwarzman building). You may also note that a huge, red, pop-up request for donations may greet you when visiting the NYPL home page.

A Library Journal article on Mayor Bloomberg's 2010 budget plan revealed the depths of Brooklyn and Queens Public Libraries' impending pain.

In response to copyright battles over the Google Book Search program, New York Law School will launch their Public Interest Book Search Initiative later this month. This program is meant to "foster public discussion about the law and policy of digitizing books, making them searchable, and distributing them online."

City Room explored some of the two million plus sound recordings in Bob George's ARChive of Contemporary Music and its new relationship with Columbia University Libraries.

[The main reading room (Jake Dobkin/Gothamist); image via Gothamist.]

NYC Budget Proposal, Take 2 (Deep Breaths)

Mayor Bloomberg's revised 2010 city budget proposal is as grim as his initial set of figures, released back in January. You've probably read about his plans for sales tax increases, health care "cost containment" for unionized city workers (fail!), and layoffs galore. But do you know what's in store for the city's libraries? Answer: a $34 million (22.2%) budget cut, or $13.9 million more than the January proposal (if I calculated correctly).

Gotham Gazette and NY1 put the human toll of this reduction at 943 positions across the three systems. WNYC reports that at the New York Public Library, President Paul LeClerc "is afraid they'll have to cut 415 library jobs, reduce their book purchases by 25 percent and research materials by 35 percent." Whoa! Ouch! Holy f*ck!

According to the Gazette, as the City Council dukes out the details they are "expected to focus on cuts to social services and libraries. [Finance Chairman David] Weprin said this budget would do away with six-day service, which the council has fought to protect for the last year." Lawmakers have until June 30 to approve a budget.

Use It or Lose It

Here's another interesting fact: People always mention libraries in terms of just being sources for reading material or research. But I probably would not be in Chicago were it not for the Manhattan public library, because I was looking for an organizing job and was having great trouble finding a job as a community organizer in New York. The Mid-Manhattan library had these books of lists of organizations, and the librarian helped me find these lists of organizations, and I wrote to every organization. One of them wound up being an organization in Chicago that I got a job with.

-- Barack Obama, interviewed in American Libraries, Aug. 2005, p. 48-52

This quotation has become quite the touchstone. And why not? It's an impromptu, priceless promotion of our cause. So go ahead, City Room, keep writing articles like today's "Job Seekers at the Library, in Obama's Footsteps." Let's hope the City Council and the New York State Legislature are reading.



This image is becoming ubiquitous, but what's not to love?

NYC Libraries in the News, Breast-Baring Edition

This week's local library news ran the gamut, from the sensationalist to the superfluous.

A patron of Brooklyn Public's Flatlands branch was upbraided by a security guard for breastfeeding in the children's area. After she complained to the New York Civil Liberties Union, BPL issued an apology and transferred the guard to a different branch. Suffice it to say, the media were all over this one, quickly followed by the requisite array of ignorant-to-informed reader comments. But really, is this newsworthy? Breastfeeding in public is legal. Period. And why do so many (male) commenters compare breastfeeding to urination? As though secretion of bodily fluids were the most significant characteristic of the two activities! Even the.effing.librarian likened the two, however obliquely.

Library Journal published a point-counterpoint on the Rutgers SCILS proposed name change controversy.

And in the NY Times, yet another article focused on increased use of city libraries and their role in assisting patrons with job searches. Not that I begrudge the positive coverage, it's just that as the deadlines for the NY state and city budget votes near, I prefer the-sky-is-falling type articles that match my own growing hysteria.

Crunching NYC's Library Budget

According to the Daily News, it's unlikely the City Council will be able to counter the mayor's proposed budget cuts for the city's public library systems as they've done in previous years. The coffers are empty. NYPL could lay off 281 workers, Queens Library may have to slash 24% of their workforce, and Brooklyn Public's "doomsday scenario" involves 220 lost jobs. Library subcommittee chair Vincent Gentile (D-Bay Ridge) is hopeful that funding from the federal economic stimulus package will mitigate the pain.

Bathing in the Limelight; Bathing in the Library

The NY Times published a slew of library-related articles last week. Well, four, but compared with their normal zero to two, four is a veritable onslaught. Links:

• The good: "Times Are Tough, Libraries Are Thriving"
• The bad: "Serving More Cardholders, but Dealing With Smaller Budgets"
• The ugly: "How Mr. Toast Took a Bath"
  
• The heartwarming: "A Is for Artwork That Lures Bronx Schoolchildren to New Libraries"
  

NYPL Construction Plans Come Tumbling Down?

The NY Times reports something many of us had already suspected: Orient-Express Hotels can't pony up the cash they promised to New York Public in the Donnell Library deal. To recap the situation, NYPL sold Donnell for $59 million, intending to use the proceeds to fund the Norman Foster renovation of the Humanities and Social Sciences Library. Orient-Express planned to build an 11-story hotel which would have included a new, much smaller library. Donnell's collections have been distributed to various libraries throughout the system, with some materials destined for the temporary Grand Central Branch, slated to open this spring...supposedly.

Photo by Driven By Boredom. More Donnell Library destructoporn and swan song commentary available here.

Post Vilifies NYPL Pensioners

Today's NY Post claims New York Public Library retirees are collecting enormous pensions! Actually, the article reveals that two former librarians are receiving the 7th and 9th highest pensions in the state and a total of 1,128 library retirees are taking in $21.6 million. Let's see now...$21.6 million divided by 1,128 comes to a whopping $19,148! Those book-lovers sure are a greedy bunch. (Fair warning: some of the comments are rather demoralizing.)

Make Way for Lent: Field Trips, Week of Feb. 23, 2009

Over the next few months, we'll be seeing a number of events that focus on job skills, networking, and other recession-responsive subjects. This week features two such affairs: on Tuesday, SLA-NY hosts an evening program entitled "Opportunities of New York: Employment in a Challenging Environment"; and Friday brings an all-day METRO workshop, "How to Survive and Thrive in the Workplace". Now to the fun stuff:

• Feb. 24: What can book publishers do to keep the dream alive? Hear Robert Miller and Jason Epstein discuss "The Next Publishing Frontier" at the General Society Library.
• Feb. 25: Center for Book Arts presents the first installment of a series on the Vandercook. (It's a kind of proof press...if you're an ignoramus like I am, this website is quite edifying.)
• Feb. 26: METRO's Bibliographic Instruction Special Interest Group will feature three presentations of particular benefit to academic librarians.

And so not leastly, but lastly: MARDI GRAS PARTY! Here's a reminder note from Desk Set Nation:

Don't let Mardi Gras come and go without eating some king cake, donning some shiny beads, shaking it to some good ole' New Orleans tunes, and contributing towards the literary life of that great city!

Join the Desk Set at Daddy's for our party and Book Drive!
Tuesday, February 24th
7:30pm till late
Daddy's Bar
Williamsburg, Brooklyn

Please donate to our Book Drive!
You can purchase one or more inexpensive paperbacks on our Amazon Wish-list, send it to New Orleans, and make a student's day. All books will be donated to the A.P. Tureaud Elementary School, located in the 7th ward. Like all NOLA schools, Tureaud has struggled mightily to survive post-Katrina. Books are scarce, and we can make a huge difference. Click here to make a donation.

If you donate a book, we'll reward you with a free pint of beer courtesy of the Blue Point Brewery. But you're not really doing it for the beer, right? So even if you cannot make the party, please consider donating a book and spreading the word.

Lotsa love,

Maria and Sarah
The Desk Set
www.thedeskset.org

NY Librarians Bear New Tax Burden

Yesterday's Daily News included yet another story about the increase in library use during economic downturns. This latest rendition focused on Queens Library, its patrons, and the bleak promise of a budget-slashed future. Here are some budget statistics excerpted from New York Library Association's draft of estimated State Library Aid for 2009-2010. Remember, these figures represent New York State funding only:


Beyond the disheartening numbers and proposed service cuts, the Daily News mentions another baffling decision by our friends up in Albany, namely, "the state Department of Taxation and Finance's move to stop mailing income tax packets. The agency is instead urging people to go online or pick up the forms at their local libraries." Though this move saves $1 million and cuts down on paper waste, what of the extra work and expense incurred by public libraries? The tax men have set up a special phone number for librarians, but it seems they've underestimated taxpayer neediness. According to this article in the Times Union, libraries across the state are overwhelmed with questions, running out of forms, and having to pay out of pocket for copies. The Caldwell-Lake George Library "set up a collection jar to help offset some of the additional cost." What's next, bake sales? Buy a cookie, get a 1040 instruction packet?

In testimony given at the Joint Legislative Budget Hearing on January 28th, NYLA lambasted state legislators. "Not only are you asking us to do more with less," they argued, "but you are asking libraries to help collect the very tax dollars you are taking away from us." Don't bite the hand that feeds you, New York.