A habitué of the Fields Corner branch of the Boston Public Library, McGrath took to the floor Tuesday afternoon at an overflow gathering of people worried about cuts to the library system. And his words lit up the room.

McGrath, 70, said his own infatuation with books began in the early 1970s, when he was shelving books in the state prison at Walpole, toward the end of a stint for bank robbery.

“I may have robbed banks, but I’ve never burned a book,’’ he declared, to appreciative applause.

As you may have heard, the BPL is in moderately hot fiscal water, and one solution that has been aired is the closing of a number of branch libraries. Both president Amy Ryan and board chairman Jeffrey Rudman insisted that they find this prospect distasteful, but that did little to pacify the crowd. The library-going public understandably does not want any branch closed.

Some suspect that this crisis is not entirely about money, and they’re probably right. The library is facing a shortfall of roughly $3.5 million, mostly because of expected state budget cuts. That is steep, but not necessarily insurmountable. Some people believe that the library could raise that much money, if money were the only issue.

No, another issue — carefully couched — is consolidation. That means closing underused branches or those in lousy facilities, instead of spending the money to make them marginally better. Of course, to say that publicly would be terrible politics, even if has the benefit of a certain cold logic.

I don’t mean to minimize the financial woes the library faces. The system suffered significant budget cuts last year. And there is no guarantee that next year is going to be better. Last year’s reduction was addressed largely by slashing operating expenses, like buying far fewer books. Obviously, that is not a long-range strategy for an agency that is all about books.

Ryan insisted yesterday that closing branches is not a fait accompli. “I know people love their libraries,’’ she said. “I love libraries. Our hope is to build a library for the future, and this is about how we set ourselves up for the future.’’

If the meeting was any indication, the future figures to be painful. Some residents worried about the prospect of a divisive process that would pit neighborhood against neighborhood. Almost everyone agreed that the branches are an integral part of their communities.

Ryan insisted she had heard them. She is determined to be fair and outlined at the meeting the statistical criteria she will use to decide which branches could be closed. But numbers will never tell the whole story, as Ryan admits. “Those are the facts, and then there’s the truth,’’ Ryan said. “What are the community assets in a particular neighborhood? We’re going to look behind the numbers.’’

Both Ryan and Mayor Thomas M. Menino have suggested that schools and community centers might be able to take over some of the functions libraries perform. Librarians, the thinking goes, can read to seniors in a senior center; it doesn’t have to be a library. Kids could get help with homework at a community center. This theory might go over better if schools and community centers were not also facing cuts and possible closings.

“I commend the mayor and Amy Ryan for wanting to be forward-thinking, but I’m nervous about a plan for 2015 that creates a nightmare in 2010,’’ said Councilor Ayanna Pressley.

This controversy makes some long for the days when Bill Bulger sat on the library board. He could have pried $3.5 million out of the Legislature with a couple of phone calls. A bona fide power broker would come in handy about now, but this board doesn’t happen to have one.

What it has is a skeptical public and a menu of tough choices. Barring unforeseen good news on the budget, branch closings are almost certain. So are a lot of tense meetings and unhappy residents.

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