They will shut the branch libraries so they don’t have to lend out as many books. They cannot operate by using part of the huge amount of tax money the city collects to pay for the libraries, depending on the state for that. Because the state has decided to stop covering for them, the city will next try to create programs attractive to the Federal government. Primarily these programs are in the form of grants and loans for new buildings and new technology. As with the schools, they will attempt to put together a program to satisfy the federal need to build build build. This has the added advantage of giving Menino another chunk of money to steer to favored architects, developers and building contractors.
All great, right? Except to do it, they have attacked the one public service in the city that people really like. This is just one more way that the chase for federal dollars skews the priorities of local and state governments away from providing services and towards establishing money conduits that don’t address local needs.
PS I don’t think the feds should be paying for general operation of the BPL either. I proposed personally to Amy Ryan that the cardholders pay for their cards and make up the shortfall that way. No go. They don’t want us to pay, because then we might have some say.
Menino admits to Adrian Walker that the library issue is not about the money.
http://www.boston.com/news/loc…
<
p>Meanwhile, they will raise $20 million for new branches, but refuse to attempt to raise $3.3 million to save four branches and 70 jobs at Copley.
Has a wonderful brand new main library that was opened in October to much fanfare after years of planning and two years or so of construction. Its a beautiful building as one would expect from $92 million. Yes, 492 million for a new library.
<
p>So how has the entire library system fared after the completion of the new building. Well, money is needed to staff the new building so the branch libraries, except the branch library in Central Square, are all closed one day a week compared to their prior schedules.
<
p>While the new building is nice with lots of meeting spaces, underground parking for 50 cars or so, space for a cafe, etc. it does nothing for the people in the neighborhoods that frequent the branch libraries to read the daily paper, catch up with friends and just generally hang out. These people do not go to them main library as it is hard to reach from many neighborhoods. To these people the nice shiny new main library has only meant a loss of service in the libraries about which they truly care, the ones in their neighborhood where they meet with friends one day less now.
<
p>The loss of branch libraries is short sighted and harmful to the people in the neighborhoods who may never venture to the monuments that are the main libraries in Boston and Cambridge. To them the branch library is much more than a place to from which to borrow books, it is a lifeline to their friends and neighbors. To take this away in return for a better main library is to take another piece of the fabric of the neighborhoods and a loss of the spirit of community.
<
p>Fight for your branch libraries now for once they are gone they are lost forever.
branch and main libraries, that is.
<
p>Main libraries are repositories of low-used or expensive media. Rare or old items like maps and texts, expensive items like large computing centers, or just rarely checked items for which having a single copy is all that makes sense, even for a large system like Minuteman or BPL.
<
p>Branch libraries, however, are customer service centers. They are the ones which are important for the daily customers — newspaper readers, those who need 15-30 mins of Internet or other computing time, folks who are reading novels, and folks who don’t need a large collection of items in one place because they can wait a few days for it to arrive from the main repository. Branch libraries also serve as civic meeting places, both for library patrons to foster community, but also as meeting rooms for local meetings about zoning or transportation or affordable housing or any other local issue, and as a polling place.
<
p>
<
p>Obviously, we’d like our libraries to be open seven days a week, 360 days a year, from 6am until midnight so that everybody has time to get there. That’s simply not cost effective, so we cut back. Fewer hours, fewer days. I have no idea what the tipping point is, if there even is one. If a library goes from 7 days a week to 5, what is the cost to the patrons? How many suffer, and how many simply wait one more day to return their recently read and pick up new? I have no idea.