When Mayor Michael Bloomberg unveiled his 2010 fiscal year budget, many groups cringed at the prospect of some funding reductions.
However, the Queens Library, which serves 2.2 million people in the borough and has the highest circulation of any public library system in the U.S., could face devastating cuts forcing them to eliminate weekend service and even scale back weekday service to two or three days a week at more than half of its community branches, library officials said.
In Bloomberg’s 2010 executive budget, the Queens Library would see a $17 million reduction, or roughly 20 percent of its operating budget, on top of the $5 million that was cut from the current fiscal year’s budget.
“Should all of these cuts be sustained you would see drastic reductions in service to really the lowest levels on record,” said Jimmy Van Bramer, Chief External Affairs Officer for the Queens Library.
Library officials plan to meet with all of the Queens City Council representatives in the hopes that they would restore all or some of the proposed cuts when they negotiate the budget with Bloomberg.
“I think they understand how libraries are more important than ever in such an incredibly bad financial climate we are in,” Van Bramer said, referring to a number of free services that the libraries offer throughout the year.
Some City Councilmembers have already expressed concern about the funding cuts to the libraries.
“We’re going to look at the cuts carefully,” Queens City Councilmember David Weprin, who is the Chair of the Council’s Finance Committee, said on the day Bloomberg announced his budget. “We’re concerned about the cuts to libraries.”
In addition, the library has started an online campaign at www.savequeenslibrary.org in order to solicit support from the public against the proposed reductions.
