More budget cuts to Philadelphia's library system has resulted in a huge cut to Philadelphia's collection of audio books meant for the blind or others with vision impairments. There is a branch of the Free Library especially for the audio collection (on 8th St in Society Hill) that will now lose half its employees while most of the collection will be moving to... Pittsburgh? Apparently the state wants to consolidate its audio collection, which means that is Philadelphians want or need audio books they have to wait for up to a week to get it.
Now, waiting for a week to get a book from another location is not a huge deal. But I think this says more about whats going on with the state's education and library budgets than anything else. Over time these library budgets are just going to keep declining, as will services to those who need them. More librarians are going to be cut - seen as expendable to the process.
Yesterday the School District had to announce even more layoffs - and in light of the budget crises in this state, some cuts are good. But there continues to be the bleeding of services that are important to basic education - libraries. I'm of the opinion that we can't wait around for the state, local, or even national government to fix these problems. Because, guess what, they won't. We need a new way to solve these problems - before its too late.
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