Short-term solution is not long-term strategy

Media coverage of the Boston Public Library crisis points to money as being the best reason to undertake change and some view the closure of libraries as a sound long-term financial strategy. However, the budget gap, even in these dire financial times, is merely .1% of the city’s budget and closing branches does not save more money than reducing hours. The branch system that we have today has worked since the early 1900s and has seen many different financial landscapes.

Over the long-term there is no way to know what the impact of these closings will have because key questions have not be answered: How will cutting 25% of the workforce and closing 15% of the branches when usage is rising by 30% give us better services? If books can not be unpacked and re-shelved now, if community partnerships can not be formed, how will 100 fewer employees help? How will laying off 100 workers as well as shutting out those looking for work and government services, revitalize our city? How does it help to abandon neighborhoods that, according to 2000 U.S. Census data, have markedly fewer citizens with a high school, let alone a college, education, have lower incomes, and have lower home values? What is the cost to shutter buildings like the Orient Heights branch that was donated to the city in 1986 to be used as a library, the Lower Mills branch that was renovated in 2005, the Washington Village branch in the Old Colony Housing Project, and the Faneuil branch that was built in 1931 (the height of the depression)? How can we decide to close branches that have been open for 80 – 130 years in the course of 2 months? What is different today that was different in the financial times of 1930 and 1980?

Is the cost of this plan to the city’s future growth and productivity more than $3.3M? To me, that’s one answer we do have. Absolutely yes.

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