The New York Public Library
WHAT DO PUBLIC AGENCIES DO WHEN THEY FACE A BUDGET DEFICIT? WHY, THEY CUT SERVICES OF THEIR PUBLIC LIBRARIES OF COURSE.
(The Nation)
Just as free library services are all the more urgently-needed in difficult economic times, these “times” bring with them the pressure to reduce public expenditures for them. This is symbolized in the New York Public Libary’s decision to close a fabled Baltic and Slavic studies collection even as the library makes expensive and controversial plans to “improve” its building facilities. New York City is, of course, not alone as public library patrons across the country are experiencing the effects of diminished staff, operation hours and materials acquisition. Let them read graffiti!
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OCCUPY THOSE WALL STREET BACK ROOMS WHERE MASSIVE SECRET DEALS WITH U.S. GOVERNMENT WERE CRAFTED.
(Alternet)
This is the suggestion to OWS by former New York Governor Eliot Spiter. Noting that leading Wall Street banks were granted unsecured emergency loans without any public knowledge of same in trillions of dollars to the quantity of half the country’s gross national product, full transparency in such transactions should be demanded, and mortgage-holding banks that used these funds to increase their own profits and CEO salaries should be required to use these ill-gotten gains to help mortgage-holders to pay down their ill-advised home loans.
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HILLARY CLINTON’S VISIT TO MYANMAR: WHAT WAS THAT ALL ABOUT?
(Asia Times)
The first visit of a U.S. Secretary of State to this country (formerly Burma) since 1955 offers a measure of “legitimacy” in the international community gained by that repressive regime’s promise to work harder for human rights “reform.” While the visit may have some benefit in that direction, it is quite possible that it was motivated more by the desire to detach Myanmar from the influence of North Korea and China, a project consistent with the American effort to exert more of its own influence in south Asia.
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SAY YOU WANT TO PROTEST AGAINST WISCONSIN GOVERNMENT ON THE STEPS OF THE CAPITOL IN MADISON? YOU’LL NEED TO BUY A TICKET FOR THAT.
(Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel)
Governor Scott Walker now tries to activate a provision in state law that requires protesters to buy permits that will fund the cost of added police protection associated with protests. At $50 per hour per police car mobilized to the scene, it’s just getting damned expensive if you want to get your voice heard in Wisconsin.
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HEY, YOU TWO SEMINOLE COUNTY FL TEENAGERS WHO SPOKE ABOUT YOUR HOMELESSNESS ON 60 MINUTES—WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO NOW? WE’RE GOING FOR A FREE COLLEGE EDUCATION!
(Orlando Sentinel)
After their interview with Scott Pelley on the show, their sincerity about their educational aspirations moved local viewers hoping to improve their opportunity to do just that. Stetson University in DeLand responded by offering them free-ride scholarships to attend college there.
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Quote of the day…
Just imagine how many disgruntled minority groups exist in countries all around the world who would be delighted to have NATO bomb them to power. If all they have to do to achieve this is to find a TV channel that will broadcast their claims that they are “about to be massacred”, NATO will be kept busy for the next few decades, to the delight of the humanitarian interventionists.
Diane Johnstone, noting how NATO “massacre” in Libya was activited by al-Jazeerha TV’s unproven claims that NATO intervention was required to prevent a Gadaffi “massacre” of rebels in Benghazi.
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Do you receive the daily headlines in the form of an early-morning e-mail? If you don’t and you would like to receive them, just send a note to sunstateactivist2@yahoo.com and you’ll be enrolled in the “Progressive breakfast club.”
Libraries will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no libraries
– H.D. Thoreau
This is especially bad for poor people, and particularly children, who rely on the libraries as their primary source for computer usage, books and other print materials, DVDs, as well as programs like storytelling sessions with the librarians and kids’ movies that may not be available otherwise. The branch library a block from me in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, began closing on Saturdays a few months ago. It used to be jammed with people, particularly kids, on Saturday mornings. Where do they go now? A trip to the nearest open library may require the expenditure of several dollars in carfare — not so easy if you’re poor. There are no Barnes & Nobles, Borders or other bookstores in the really poor neighborhoods of New York City.
Of course this problem is not unique to New York. In the Tea Party hatred of public services, combined with the budget problems caused by the Great Recession, we’ve got a perfect storm that will result in the drastic cutback and curtailment and maybe even the end of public library services. For example, in Scottsdale, AZ, the first thing city leaders thought of to reduce the budget deficit is the closure of one public library. Generations of kids, like myself in the 1950s, depended on public libraries. Where will they go when the libraries are closed?
The main branch is right where the gentrification is highest in the city. They’ll find all sorts of excuses not to keep other branches open or repaired and well stocked.
How do these people expect the jobless to learn new skills, or to help their kids to learn things? Jobless folks can;t afford Kindles and ipad’s you know. Don’t rich politician understand that? Close the libraries and you rip down the ladder to the middle-class for working people.
Why is it that everytime cuts have to be made in state government the library ins one of the first on the chopping block? Why not cut the legislative budget, or the executive branch or the judiciary branch? It’s always the public’s programs.