|
|
|
Underfunding libraries - surprise surprise - makes them close more often
The Web site for the award-winning alternative weekly, the Philadelphia City Paper.
Underfunding libraries - surprise surprise - makes them close more often
It's Our Money features an excellent report today by Kirstin Lindermayer on the prevalence of random library closings around the city:
On any given day this year, one or more branches of the 54-branch Free Library of Philadelphia have been closed unexpectedly due to staff shortages.
The daily closings have increased significantly since September, ranging from four to seven branches on most days. Ten branches closed or reduced their hours unexpectedly Dec. 3, for example.
Are we surprised? We are not. (Are we speaking in the first person plural for some reason? We are!)
Not surprised, because we saw this coming long ago: the moment, in fact, Mayor Nutter announced that all eleven libraries would remain open – but didn't give the Library back the money he had already cut anticipating the closings! (A move I dubbed the Nutter Special in a recent column).
That's not the only thing he didn't give back: even while librarians waited in ever-mounting fear for the pink slips that the mayor assured were on their way, he was already gutting libraries of their security staff.
Library guards, if you recall, were transferred to city prisons.
When the mayor did an about face and declared the system open for business, with no closures, those guards were already gone – a problem which, almost a year later, hasn't been rectified.
In addition to shrinking staff numbers, new regulations instituted in February require a library branch to have four workers, including one security guard, in order to open. But the system hasn't had enough guards to meet this requirement for months, partly because 11 guards were transferred to other city duties last December. The library replaced them with contract guards but money for that has run out.
Likewise, lower-level administrators – the people who check out your books for you, etc. – were transferred to 311: which was, of course, the mayor's pet project.
My colleague Doron Taussig presents the situation astutely:
You have to wonder whether it makes sense to stick to a five-day schedule, given these circumstances. And if you want to be a little cynical, you have to wonder whether the city isn't sticking to the schedule simply so it can say the libraries are open five days a week ... even though they're not, really.
Mayor Nutter ought to either restore the funding he took away, or be responsible enough to close some branches, even one branch, if he intends not to pay enough for the current system to work properly.
Or maybe there's another solution, I don't know: I'm not the mayor.
But Nutter is, and he'd better do something.
The current situation is a lot better than having any branch-- even one-- closed permanently.
[...] of a variety of reduced services. Philadelphia is making daily unscheduled, random, and generally unannounced closings of public libraries. It is not only due to rolling budget cuts, but also because of budget priorities: Mayor Nutter [...]
- ActiVman
- adventures
- Arts
- Ask A Man-About-Town
- Award Tour
- Awards
- Bad Idea Factory
- Beer
- Below the Curve
- Bikes
- Booze
- Brian Hickey
- BRT
- Budget
- Budget Fuss
- Business
- Casinos
- City Council
- City Hall
- CouncilMANIC
- CP Abroad
- CP in the Community
- Criminal Justice System
- Day Tripper
- Death and Taxes
- Delaware River
- Design
- DROP
- Drugs
- Dubious Distinction
- Elections
- End of Days
- Environment
- Fashion
- Film Fest
- Financial Meltdown
- FrackTrack
- Free Library
- Gambling
- Gay Stuff
- Get Lit
- Greenstorming
- guns
- Hall Monitor
- Health
- Health Care
- Hello, Kitty
- Holidays
- Ice Cubes
- Iggles
- Immigration
- In Memoriam
- Labor
- Lawsuits
- Letters
- LGBTQ
- Maps
- Marcellus Shale
- Media
- MMA
- Mummers
- Music
- MUST READ
- Mysterious Mysteries
- Nation
- News
- Non Sequitur
- Opinion
- PA politics 2010
- Parking Wars
- Parks and Recreation
- People Send Us This Stuff
- Philadelphia Police
- Philadelphia Union
- Philaphemera
- Philly From Scratch
- philly madness
- Photos
- Poverty
- PPA
- President Obama
- Print Edition
- Prisons
- Protest
- Readers Write
- Real Estate
- Rock Bottom
- Schools
- Science
- Screwing Philly
- SEPTA
- snow
- So Lush
- Soccer
- Sporting Life
- Sports Complex
- State Politicians
- State Politics
- Street Art
- Strike
- Stuff We Like
- Taxes
- Taxi Drivers
- Tech Fetish
- television
- The Budget Crisis
- The City Paper
- The CLOG
- The Human Condition
- The Mayor
- The Phightin Phils
- The World
- Things that make you go hm
- Tinfoil Hats Off
- Under the Table
- Under the Tables
- Urban Development
- Urban Planning
- urban wildlife
- Video Poker
- We Call Shenanigans
- Weather
- Web Junk
- Weekend Omnibus
- White House
- What We've Found
- Women's Issues
- Flyered Up!
- How 'Bout That Weather?
- it's always sunny in philadelphia
- Stu!
- Shopping
- get out
- 10-track mind
- ArtsFlash
- Bloggity
- Bruce Being Bruce
- Colleges
- Comedy
- Gigantic Surprises
- Hello Canary
- Hello Puppy
- errata
- get lost
- Inside The Fishbowl
- Library Closings
- Local Support
- Movies
- Murder
- Night Moves
- Recycling
- radio
- Scientology
- Sex
- Sixers
- Skeeze Police
- State Politicians Screwing Philly
- That's a cool stencil!
- Theater
- Things We See
- This Week
- This Week in Oates
- University City
- WIN
- What we don't heart
- trailer!
- what we heart
- Feeling Guilty
- Askadelphia.
- Broke in Philly
- Contest
- Dance
- Dear Paper Doll
- Do A Good Thing
- Education
- Film Fest Schism
- G20-20 Vision
- Goodbye
- Gossip
- Great American Heroes
- PATCO
- Pearl Jam Week
- Puppy
- Stars of the Photostream
- sustainability
- Lower Merion Webcam-Gate
- The Cycle
- Equality Forum
- Bureaucrat of the Week
- Animals
- ElectionEar
- Photostream
