LISNews: Librarian News

Budget cuts seem the order of the day, this article in the Thursday edition of the Columbia Spectator gives librarians another grim look of what is ahead. Unfortunately, with state budgets still taking losses it looks like we could have to get used to more cutbacks in services, materials and staff. http://www.columbiaspectator.com/2010/02/24/recession-forces-new-york-city-libraries-check-o...

In hard times, they have become centers of access to information, communities, and jobs.

By Amy Dougherty

"A recently released report by the Philadelphia Workforce Investment Board, "Help Wanted: Knowledge Workers Needed," included a stunning statistic: Almost 50 percent of the citizens of Philadelphia lack the basic skills needed to perform in a knowledge-based economy. Given that, our state and city leaders have shown a remarkable lack of vision in threatening to reduce library services.

We need to enlarge our workforce by teaching workers the skills that will enable them and the city to make the transition to the new economy. And the infrastructure to do so already exists in our libraries.

Recent data show that Americans are flocking to local libraries, often waiting in long lines for help and computer time. They are searching for employment, job-training information, and, if they are able, rewriting their resumes. Librarians are the new career counselors, sometimes taking the brunt of patrons' frustrations and fears in these turbulent times."

Read the full Commentary from the Philadelphia Inquirer at:

Libraries are a path to future

"People are flocking to Deschutes County libraries, and officials say the slumping economy may be bringing them business. From July through November, patrons checked out about 10 percent more books and other items compared with the same period last year."

Read the full article at:

Books fly off shelves as library use soars

On November 8, 2008, four days after the election of Barack Obama, first year Mayor Michael Nutter of Philadelphia announced the closings of 11 branch libraries as part of an attempt to balance the city budget in face of declining revenues.

Mayor Nutter has been met with determined resistance from the city wide Friends of the Free Library, led by executive director Amy Dougherty, and the Friends of the Free Library groups at each of the 11 branch libraries and at most branch libraries around the city.

While the Friends of the Free Library have made clear their strong preference was for no library cuts at all, they have announced that they would favor reduction of hours at all libraries as against shutting some down.

As a state legislator in whose district two of the eleven libraries shut down are located, I have been an active public spokesperson against the library closings.

One of the libraries to be shut down, the David Cohen Ogontz Library, is named for my late father, the longest serving Philadelphia Councilman at Large in the city's history. It is named for him because of his passionate activism for its creation over a thirty-five year period spanning six mayoral administrations. -- Read More