Hi People of Boston:

I hope that you enjoyed your summers and are looking forward to a wonderful New England Fall filled with all the things you come to expect, except for Saturday and Sunday hours at the Boston Public Library.  At 5:30 P.M. yesterday branches were informed that Saturday hours would not begin this weekend as usual, rather they would begin October 16th.  Throughout the painful budget process we were told that cutting back would save the rest of the system.  As we heard on March 9th:

“We can excel if we re-align our services … Change library hours across the system to include more evenings, Saturdays and to increase staffing at peak times like after school hours.”

As we were told in summary of the “Option 4″ that was adopted by the trustees: “22 branches keep current hours.” — “New service improvements will be possible with additional resources” — “More consistent homework and summer reading activities for youth.”

Needless to say, this change will cut programs scheduled for Saturdays such as book sales for the Friends groups, language programs, and homework programs not to mention inconveniencing the families that this budget was supposed to help.

By allowing President Amy Ryan to make this move, our mayor has given us Strike 3 in the library fight since June 30th.  Strike 1 was the Mayor going back on promises to save 10 AFSCME jobs.  Strike 2 was the Mayor and Councillors Michael Ross and Ayanna Pressley failing to sign and send the home rule petition to the statehouse for approval before their session ended.  Mike Ross was able to get a different home rule petition signed by the governer that will allow restaurants in certain areas of his district, but could not even get the Mayor to sign ours.  Ayanna Pressley has all but abandoned efforts to save the four branches, raise money for the library, or form the Task Force that she spoke of during her budget vote.

I have held back on updating everyone until there was a call to action and now is the time to wake back up.  Call the mayor’s constituent services line at 617-635-4500 or write to mayor@cityofboston.org and call President Amy Ryan 617-859-2366 or write to aeryan@bpl.org and ask: why are hours being cut? why do your books take so long to arrive from hold? how can the lackluster services possibly be maintained when further staff cuts take effect in October? why are materials being sent to Amazon? why is the library reducing its materials capacity instead of increasing capacity? why are new books not showing up on the shelves? where are the new exciting (and expensive) technologies that are supposed to transform our library? where is the Faneuil children’s librarian? where is the extended public process?

These are just some of the quesitons that Councillor Charles Yancey will be helping us to ask in the coming weeks through a post-audit hearing on the library’s budget.  We will keep you informed about the date and time.  If we do not remain vigilant, services will continue to dwindle, more branches will be closed and more staff will be lost.

Additionally, continue to support your library by attending events and thanking the front-line library staff.  Tonight the Parker Hill Branch Library will be screening “To Kill a Mockingbird” at 5:30 P.M.  This Saturday there will be a booksale at the Connolly Branch Library from 10-4 held by its Friends group.  Next Wednesday the Friends of the Egleston Square and Parker Hill Branch Libraries will be having a 50th Anniversary celebration of To Kill a Mockingbird from 7:00 – 9:30 P.M. by holding a discussion on the way that immigration, housing, and education policies continue to discriminate.  The panel includes local authors, academics, leaders, and students.

Many more events can be found here: http://www.bpl.org/news/calendar.htm

Thanks for reading, sorry the news is not more upbeat, but we did not think that this would end on 6/30.

---