The Neighborhood News Online

Budget Cuts At Our Libraries

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Category: Community News

Published on Monday, 11 October 2010 00:23

Written by De'Lois Jacobs

Our libraries are no longer open on Mondays, making Tuesdays one of the busiest days of the week at local Jefferson branch. With the recent wave of economic cutbacks, our local libraries have seen a 30% reduction in staff through early retirement and layoffs, and a 20% reduction in service hours. Hardest hit were the children’s library services – less reading and arts and crafts programs. While staff has been reduced, the amount of people utilizing the library has not, so John Frank, Senior Librarian at Jefferson, is grateful to volunteers and also credits the very dedicated staff who go above and beyond duty to keep daily operations running smoothly.

Our libraries represent a mere 2% of the city budget and we get a great deal of value in return. Aside from books, magazines, movies, documentaries on DVD and music CDs, Jefferson offers computer literacy classes twice a week. For many looking for jobs, financial aid, health and social services, access to library computers is not just a convenience, but an absolute necessity. With the return of the school season students come back to the libraries to study, research and do homework after school.

In 1998 we got vocal with our mayor and city council members, turned out at the voting booth and overwhelmingly passed the library bond initiative to refurbish and build new libraries. We may very well have to get vocal again, this time to insure that once it is economically feasible, our libraries are restored to full operating schedules and staffing levels.

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