Library Closings

Every once and awhile I have time to peruse the Library Journal's site. They usually have pretty great articles about whats going on with libraries and librarians across the US.

Today, two caught my eye, and both are about library systems closings. Chicago and Detroit have both been struggling with budget cuts (much like Philadelphia), and had to make the difficult decision to shutter branches.

In Detroit, the shutting of 4 branches was actually decided by the library system, in order to preserve its current staff of librarians who had been working in mulitple locations and with longer hours in order to keep the branches open after layoffs. Luckily, the new closures won't result in new layoffs.

But in Chicago, the budget for the library system was reduced by $8 million, which will lead to about 180 layoffs - a pretty big number.

It's pretty amazing the amount and size of layoffs in the teaching and librarianship sectors recently. Unfortunately, librarians aren't seen as "necessary" like teachers are, and their axed positions rarely come back (much unlike teaching positions). That's part of the struggle in Philadelphia right now - librarians were laid off in the 70's and 80's, but they were never recalled, leading to the problems we see today in Philadelphia's school libraries.

Unfortunately, the budget crises in most cities means that school librarians, and shuttered library branches won't be coming back any time soon. City governments aren't suddenly going to see the value in the school libraries, or be able to generate funds from mid-air for their creation.

So what can we do about it? This is a question that I'm still mulling, but here are some initial thoughts:

1. Hold book drives for a local school.
2. Contact private or charter school librarians to see if they have extra books.
3. Contact local library branches about extra books.
4. Create a "Friends of xxx School Library" much the same way that organizations supporting library branches have been created.


Changing these problems just requires someone - anyone - to get involved.