Daily News Crusades for New York Library Hours
-- Library Journal, 08/10/2006
Under the headline "Gloomy tale of N.Y.'s libraries," the New York Daily News on August 6 offered an old-fashioned summertime crusade, calling the limited library hours in New York City's three systems "the shame of the city." The average of 38 hours per week in branches of the Brooklyn Public Library, the Queens Borough Public Library, and the New York Public Library means fewer than half of the city's libraries are open six days a week. In Chicago, by contrast, libraries are open 58 hours per week, and in Los Angeles, 49 hours. Not to mention that the suburbs of New York offer better hours. Demand for books remains high, and lines for libraries begin before the doors open.
The library systems recently gained permanent baseline support. Still, the city's Independent Budget Office calculated that the city's contribution to libraries had declined by $33 million since 2000, when adjusted for inflation. Library leaders interviewed by the Daily News said they were pushing for more hours but a spokesman for Mayor Mike Bloomberg wouldn't guarantee any increase. So the newspaper offered a rousing editorial, "Let's do more for the libraries," urging Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn to make them a higher priority. The next day, an interview with Quinn got her on the record. "We need to change the thinking of government," she told the newspaper, "to stop looking at libraries as expendable and more as places that should be thought of as untouchable, because they are that important to neighborhoods."
