Libraries Face Cuts Over 55,000 Clients Per Week Could Be Affected

The Queens Borough Public Library (QBPL) is facing a series of municipal budget slashes that will sharply cut its services to borough residents, warned Library Director Gary E. Strong.
Triggered by the 9/11 tragedy and a recession that has impacted the municipal tax revenue, the city finds itself $5 billion short despite funding from state and federal aid sources. Compounding this problem, the city provides about 80 percent of the Library systems operating fund.
Fueled by a busy membership base of 869,000 students and curious seniors, the QBPL has been the busiest city library in the United States since 1994. During the past 12 months, library circulation has jumped another 6%. This heavy demand for books and information has spilled over into the systems reference sections, where visitors fire an average 208,000 reference questions per week at the librarys staff and computers.
The estimated 1.4 million monthly visitors who use the systems 63 libraries, will be negatively affected, predicted Strong. He said that as a result of heavy cuts to its Summer Reading program, an estimated 20,000 Queens youngsters were unable to enroll in their local libraries during the recent vacation months. Projected reduction of services could negatively affect an estimated 56,000 persons a week.
The Librarys current $68 million budget, which had already suffered a 5% cut, is now threatened by an additional 7-1/2% slice which could cause the following educational damage:
All but one of the boroughs 63 libraries will be reduced to a 5-day per week service.
An average 3,200 fewer books will be ordered annually for each branch librarys shelves.
This reduction of service will reduce the systems strong support of the Department of Educations new reading and educational research programs.
Budget cuts will curtail the effectiveness of Queens major research centers for Queens large scholastic population 400,000 of them elementary, middle school, and college-aged students.
Councilman John Liu (D-Flushing), whose district contains five libraries, called the proposed service reductions "tragic," because local libraries serve as an educational port of entry for many of his constituents who recently entered this country. "Curtailing library hours," he said, "would be like selling out the kids as well as selling out the seniors."
Strong warned that even a short-term cutback of library services would have far-reaching negative effects on the boroughs large immigrant population. "We will have missed opportunities to help adults in Queens to read or speak English better, start businesses, or to get a job."