Amid reports about big spending on salary and offices for the system’s top exec, Melinda Katz endorsed calls for a Council probe and promised to do some digging of her own.
Tell us about the branch you use, or why you don’t use it. And download an easy-to-read version of our report on the serious challenges facing New York’s libraries.
Free access to technology, help for immigrants, a safe space for kids. Branch libraries play an increasingly important role. But funding hasn’t kept up. Will the lack of support undermine a critical civic resource?
Citing fiscal pressure, the schools want to use in-classroom libraries and parent volunteers instead of certified librarians. Critics say kids need more than that.
The small McKinley Park branch in Dyker Heights bustles with immigrants but struggles to meet demand after years of cuts to the library system.
Libraries perform a critical role in workforce development for low-income New Yorkers. But budget cuts have so curtailed service that Detroit’s libraries are now open more than New York’s.
A trip to six Brooklyn branch libraries in low-income neighborhoods found that many classic novels are not on the shelves. As budgets tighten and many readers go digital, do these missing titles represent A Brave New World or Darkness at Noon?
Despite the Internet age and the e-book craze, Brooklyn’s libraries are seeing increasing usage. But budget cuts are one challenge the system might not be able to surmount.
The library holds over 1,200 books from an array of genres, including politics, poetry, religion, gender studies, foreign language, and science fiction.
In the age of the Internet and an era of shrinking government budgets, are public libraries worth taxpayers’ dollars. A conservative policy analyst—and former library worker—says “yes.”
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