“Library leaders argue that their institutions provide vital services – free books, Wi-Fi, computer access, online content and educational programs, among others – in 200 neighborhoods across the city, including in underserved communities. Councilmember Chi Ossé — chair of the Committee on Cultural Affairs, Libraries, and International Intergroup Relations — agreed.

“We truly believe [the cuts are] going to affect one of the only public spaces in New York City,” he said during the hearing.”

——— This 100%.

The job of a librarian in Brooklyn with two or three staff at 4pm and 100+ visitors including 70 under 18 versus an upstate rural or suburban librarian with the same personnel level but no more than 3 or 4 people at a time for roughly the same pay is…. Unbelievable.

City trained, ‘burbs drained.

Some of the librarians are so sexy.

You can email the city council with feedback on these proposals fwiw.

Lol they won’t do anything..At best they will do something if it fits CC agenda.

Librarians don't have a big enough union for the city council to really care or do anything.

So why do people vote for them??

In case anyone is wondering, the $20 million dollars they're cutting is less than .2% of the NYPD's 10.8 BILLION dollar budget. At least when all those kids can't go to the library after school they can be rounded up and jailed efficiently.

I wish libraries would modernize.

Double down on ebooks, reduce real estate footprint to being hole in the walls or even kiosks with overnight delivery of what you ordered.

Reality is there’s no reason you can’t warehouse their inventory and deliver to locations as needed on a much more serious scale than the hold system of the early 1900’s.

It’s time to modernize. Less branches but more locations. Some empty storefronts would be more than large enough for a modern library.

But pretending it’s 1906 in 2022 is the main reason libraries in the US are floundering.

In much of the world many libraries are in a corner of the grocery store, malls, transit hubs etc. order what you want and pick it up later in the day or next day. Then return there. Their footprint is just a few feet. More convenient and much lower cost. It also allows them to be everywhere. You can be much more accessible this way being in every neighborhood.

This is what much of the world does with great success. The US is the one with failing libraries.

Libraries are actually doing a good job of providing the services they're supposed to, so clearly they have too much money

0.05% of the DOE’s $38 billion budget.

All my friends are dead

Libraries are community centers, not just distributors. Need to study somewhere quieter than home? Library. Don’t have a decent computer and need to apply bc of a job or deal with government websites? Library.

Personally, I read e-books and don’t go to the library because I have all of those amenities at home. But I’m glad the library is there for the people that don’t.

Also, NYC libraries do provide lots of eBooks and audio books for free via the great Libby app.

Most nypl books are already warehoused in nj

The library provides many, many more resources than books for people. Physical locations (which are owned by the city) are central to how most people use the library. They keep track of usage, even during the pandemic ebooks only made a fraction of the loans they normally make.

More importantly the library 's social value is who they serve, which includes a lot of people who need IRL support. Seniors, children, people who live in poverty and need access to technology all need branches, that's why they're opening new ones. They also have tech and spaces for at home workers too, at the new branches, so white collar workers benefit as well.

Cutting schools to save libraries feels like trying to put out a fire by starting another fire in a different place. But yes, libraries are a very small part of the budget.

they definitely shouldn't have done away with the fines... besides the little bit of money it messes up if you need a book thats out people are just going to take longer to return them if theres no penalty

That’s stuff that needs to be fixed by having proper resources. Not dumping it on libraries which are I’ll prepared or capable of dealing with these problems.

Spending money inefficiently isn’t fixing the problem.

This is no different than using the subway system as a way to avoid needing more shelters for the homeless. That’s not what the E train is for.

Fixing problems requires fixing the actual problems and providing proper support solutions. Not using libraries as a catch all.

...the current system is "people need to borrow stuff for free and use free tech sometimes because they don't own any" and they go to a neighborhood location and do that. How do you propose they do that more efficiently?

You don’t need 30k feet of floor space with stacks of books in a 1-3 story building that takes up 1/4 a city block for that.

Asia has shown us how little you need for an Internet cafe. A restaurant’s footprint can serve 3-4x that many people.

My point is much of the world has already done this. The US is pretty alone with not modernizing how libraries operate.

It’s not surprising it works elsewhere and the US is alone with struggling libraries.

The US is obsessed with tradition, and this is a perfect example. Libraries aren’t working, the rest of the world figured this out years ago. We pretend we have no idea what’s going on and do nothing.

Ebooks are extremely expensive to have for loan

You’ve not been to many branches, have you?

Police aren’t even that massive a part of the city budget compared with other cities.

But when there is a penalty, they just don’t return it at all.

“The Library Ends Late Fees, and the Treasures Roll In The decision in New York City set off a wave of returns, accompanied by bashful notes of apology and gratitude.”

gift article - no paywall

This is a crock of shit. Statistics overwhelmingly show that removing fines results in more books being returned.

Chicago saw 240% increase in return rate only 3 weeks after removing the fines. https://www.npr.org/2019/11/30/781374759/we-wanted-our-patrons-back-public-libraries-scrap-late-fines-to-alleviate-inequi

NYC saw almost 100k more overdue books and other items returned in a single year. Some overdue by decades. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/31/nyregion/nyc-library-fines-books-returned.html

Removing fines also increased traffic to the libraries and greatly benefited low income families

A lot of people can't wrap their heads around the idea that sometimes punishment and penalties aren't the answer. I find it truly ironic that some of the people that are most ardent about punishment, from late fees to capital punishment, are devout Christians. I never heard of Jesus saying - hey, you go to Hell for a bit to pay for all of your sins before getting into Heaven. Yet, you'd think that with the way punishment is held up as the main corrective for any problem with the human condition among many Christians in the U.S..

I remember having an app when I was in California where I could check out ebooks with my library card. Don’t we have something similar in NY? I haven’t gotten a card as I moved back right before Covid and had too many life events to have the time. Q1 2023 it will happen.

> Asia has shown us how little you need for an Internet cafe.

Okay, but we’re not talking about Internet cafes, we’re talking about libraries. You know libraries throughout Asia look and function pretty similarly to libraries in America, right?

I had a friend who had a dream of becoming a librarian and work at the famous nyc public library in Manhattan. I told her, it’s not quite the wise decision in terms of being financially secure. At the start maybe. But she went and did it anyway.

I guess I was right…

Man you have absolutely no clue what you’re talking about. “Time to modernize!!!” By becoming a bare bones book request delivery system and letting everything else we do fall by the wayside. Do you use libraries? Or are you just assuming you know more about them than the people who run them?

It's pretty limited in many states. Few books, cumbersome. Pretty archaic.California's libraries are way ahead in terms of US libraries.

Most of the world even physical books you can order via kiosk or app, and pickup at one of many locations like supermarkets, post offices, etc where libraries have sometimes just a locker, or a small kiosk or storefront. Return at any one of them too. Smaller locations will have a few computers for research etc.

vs. the archaic buildings full of dusty books and people having to wait a few days for a book they want or travel to the right library to get it which is how NY still operates.

It wouldn't be cutting schools it would be finally doing something about the DOE's massive administrative bloat.

People in poverty use the library for internet access. It’s a vital public service

Username on point, you’re brain broken dude. Go to the library literally one time before posting about how they need to “modernize”

You don't need stacks of books to provide internet access.

You can use multiple smaller retail locations for that. More accessible and less under utilized square footage.

Again for the back row: Many countries have solved this problem. It's only the US that has struggling libraries because they refuse to modernize. This is a self inflicted problem.

It's OK - we kept that NYPD budget intact so that we could have an increase in crime, and proponents could just argue 'we need more cops'.

Makes sense, if you're a cop looking for OT. Everyone else? Not so much.

>Double down on ebooks

Everyone else has brought up incredible points in their replies to you, but I need to specifically point out that you (and many others) have no idea how much eBooks cost for libraries. Not only is the cost often at least double what it is for the consumer, the licenses for these eBooks disappear after x-amount of time or x-number of checkouts and the libraries have to purchase them again and again.

If more people understood that this is how publishers and distributors operate, they wouldn't be blaming libraries for not being "modern" enough. We don't have the money for it!

ETA: Regarding the common internet cafe argument I often see people make, internet cafes frequently cost money either to use the internet service itself OR with the assumption that someone has their own device that can make use of free internet. The point of a library having computers and internet is that it is free for the community to use, whether they have their own device and/or money to pay for internet service or not.

ETA again, I wrote "comment internet cafe" instead of "common internet cafe" and hate myself for that typo so I fixed it.

>Most of the world even physical books you can order via kiosk or app, and pickup at one of many locations like supermarkets, post offices, etc where libraries have sometimes just a locker, or a small kiosk or storefront.

A lot of the places that utilize this method do not have a large number of accessible branches for patrons to use AKA the opposite of 3 systems in NYC.

I am frequently critical of city spending patterns but making cuts to the libraries to balance the books is just comical. Penny wise and pound foolish.

A not often talked about aspect of having books ordered is a loss of serendipity. Finding a book by chance, whether in a library or bookstore, on subject matter or genre that you previously had no knowledge or interest in is one of the most fun ways to expand your imagination or world view.

This is a common model in much of the world.

NYC libraries struggle because that’s how the city likes it. That’s not opinion. That’s fact.

Libraries aren't just that. There's an intangibles to something's that raise a community.

But if you want to just focus on the space it occupies, I've been to two libraries outside the states and they were all big and beautiful. Stacks of books.

Here's a top list too which I guess would have you say it's a waste. https://www.thebestcolleges.org/amazing-libraries/

But maybe you could share some sources to how other countries are managing library systems? And how that has improved libraries for the people. Rather than us just take your word on it.

That's a great fucking question

I fear the administrative bloat would remain and critical functions of the DOE would suffer

It would absolutely be cutting schools because they're never gonna take money from the administrators and do-nothings when they have the opportunity to take money from the kids and teachers.

Lmao no its not. It's a feature of the model but it's not the entire model. All of those library systems that have pick up/drop off services also invest heavily in their main campus and branches.

You're just parroting shit you heard in a TedX talk from a some asshole who wants to turn libraries into a business.

[deleted]

I wrote my council person and you should too!

I've been wondering about this. My Citizen App scans all the police and fire traffic. The number of times in 24 hours the police are actually called is really a handful of times.

Like almost never. Try it yourself. One homeless guy the other day, He was really doing nothing. 2 ambulances, at least 3 NYPD patrol cars, on the scene. It was the UES, but seemed way overboard.

And then everyone just walked away. He just stayed there, seemed amazed by all the attention. Guess it's what we're paying for.

jfc. go jerk off in a sock before posting bro 😭. Find god

We spent $28k per students with piss poor outcome. That a private school tuition in many places.

I bet the DOE has way more employees, buildings, and equipment and infrastructure than the NYPD. They also don’t kill people.

Closer to $38k per student actually.

Absolutely sickening while the police budget balloons every year with no oversight or accountability.

For fucks sake this is where they try to cut the budget?

What are you even talking about? There’s a few historic public libraries and the rest are small community branches. If you need to borrow a book chances are you’ll be going to a neighborhood library and not 42nd street. Local libraries offer programs for adult literacy, basic computer skills, budgeting, job search support, career coaching, college application assistance…and those are just the adult programs. Libraries are a community space.

Of course, the DOE is an endless sprawl. That’s partly why it’s so expensive, despite the fact that fewer people use it each year.

DOE employees don’t kill people because their job isn’t public safety. Happily, NYPD almost never kills an unarmed person.

And that’s before we consider cost of living

Those libraries are incredible.

How can we help

Nypd kills a lot of their own too. Do teachers do that a lot?

Wat

Nypd friendly fire is responsible for a significant number of line of duty deaths.

I would think that would make you happy.

As much as I dislike the NYPD I don’t want them to be killed and I don’t celebrate their death.

You’re deeply concerned about their safety, I see.

I see you’re not interested in having an actual discussion.

You are? About what? This is a thread about library funding.

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Ok? So your proposal is to take money from schools to give to libraries, when the police have a ridiculously bloated budget and stomp their feet when we ask for accountability? Lol. Bootlickers are something else.

What a dumbass argument

Ok but how much good do public libraries do when compared to cops scrolling Tinder on the subway

And you brought up the DOE?

Yeah, to contextualize the size of the NYPD budget, which someone else brought up. So what is it you want to discuss?

Are their stats that track how the public uses the library system? Curious what the KPIs they would look at, and what the trends are.

Right, the NYPD budget is way higher than it should be.

Maybe you’re right, maybe not. I haven’t studied it closely. But the DOE’s budget is definitely higher than it should be.

Great discussion!

Maybe next time you talk to someone don’t imply that they’re happy about people dying.

I bet there’s a lot you haven’t studied closely.

Is this part of our “actual discussion”?

Nope. Just an addendum.

Feels like you never wanted an actual discussion.

You suggested that I took joy in people dying. You’re the one that ended the discussion with that bullshit.

What were we discussing?

Also, sorry, I had no idea that would upset you so much.

You can read. Go look it up.

Cutting parks and rec next, then community college, then Medicare, then social security. But cops need a raise.

You were making comments about how NYPD killed people and teachers don’t. Not a substantive discussion in my book. More like dropping juvenile comments. And then I upset you.

The more the politicians make noise about leftist virtue signalling, the more you can be sure that the actual things governments are supposed to be doing are being neglected.

Ah so you can read. Just make your points instead of dragging it out to try and be more of a dick.

My point was that for all the money we spend on police here they end up causing a ton of harm. Perhaps money is wasted on the DOE but they aren’t tearing families apart or beating people or killing them.

This will never happen, any budget cuts will just get passed immediately to classroom.

Hey remember when a mass shooter tried to turn himself in and the NYPD “couldn’t find him” when he told them where he was? Way to go NYPD!

Policing by definition is going to involve what you would call “harm.” It involves forcing people to do things they don’t want to do, including a lot of violent people. It involves guns and knives. This explains why NYPD shoots more people than teachers do. I can’t believe I actually needed to point that distinction out.

Good point, the police should be disbanded.

If you’re not a cop you should sign up. You’ll fit right in.

Education is expensive.

Shit, when you’re right you’re right.

Is that part of the actual discussion that you value so highly?

Nooooooooooooooooo....

It's like whenever you start to think, well this place is kinda starting to suck but at least we have the (Enter next thing to loose funding). Damn man

Half the time when I make a comment like that I get the response “nowhere did I say that.” The other half the time I get a response like yours.

As I said before, it was over when you tried to say I enjoyed people being killed. This is just me being an asshole in kind.

What you're saying is definitely not a fact. Mall kiosks are a thing (and the US has them too, sorry to bust that narrative.* But that's not the same thing as it being 'a common model in much of the world.' They're useful in areas that can't support a full library. In cities, they're mostly pointless, because the population is dense enough to have an actual library. They'd be an extra here, not a replacement for a full service library.

I'll ask you again: do you use libraries? Because picking up requests is not even in the top five things people visit my library for.

There’s zero difference between you now and back when you badly wanted an actual discussion. Apart from such brilliant observations as “police kill people and teachers don’t,” you have nothing to say.

You have the deductive skills of a cop too. You’ll totally fit in.

Maybe I’m wrong. I’m sure if I browse your comment history I’ll see a bunch of examples of you making interesting and nuanced points.

I know I won’t find anything substantive in your comments.

Lol, you’re one of the people who thinks it’s evidence-based to say that policing is incapable of reducing crime. Seriously, you have nothing to say except zingers about how you hate cops.

https://reddit.com/r/nyc/comments/zh01ix/_/izl2m2h/?context=1

Police aren’t the solution to crime. It’s pretty stupid to think that.

There is no “solution” to crime. It’s even dumber to think that. Crime can be managed. It will never be eradicated.

You’re so intellectually dishonest. I love it.

How so?

Cry about it

Nah, there’s no point. It just grows year after year. Once in a while there’s a tiny cut and people act like it’s a war crime, and then the bloat resumes its skyward trend.

That city is a trash pile

I understand the frustration. I’ve been commenting on stuff for decades, but I would never discourage civic participation. Every once and a while it works, and it’s hard to predict ahead of time when that will be. I’m going to leave a comment

Reminder that the House of Representatives passed a $858,000,000,000 """defense""" bill for 2023 this week. What are our priorities??

[deleted]

Other states spend a lot less with better outcome. The solution isn’t that throw more money into a failing machine.

Thanks for correcting my number. And funny how statistical facts can get downvoted here

Some butthurt people in this thread.

Yes, but what if the NYPD needs to buy a tank?

That's ridiculous. They need a lethal, GPS-operated, robotic, drone-tank hybrid that costs at least three libraries each. Fricken bleeding heart liberals...

Police do a bad job of protecting people and preventing crime, so clearly they have too little money.

I think I have a great idea! 🤓

Eric Adams is pure garbage

They libraries have been crying for many years they have no money. Their manager make well over 187,000 a year with lower administration make just under that. With minimal work to do.

Not really, and it’s not a “failing” machine. But you can go ahead and explain how cutting the budget to an already strapped institution is actually a good thing.

Former city councilmembers and commissioners are making millions from city contracts as non-profit execs with minimal oversight. But the city can't afford libraries...

Remember, we voted for this.

Lol of course you work for the city

Dusty books, lol. You know librarians regularly remove books that don’t circulate from their collections, right? Shelf space is valuable. Do you think libraries just keep accumulating books and never get rid of any?

Lol okay I don’t know what position you think you’re in to talk down to anyone Lyft driver. Didn’t answer any of my questions though.

Investinlibraries.org/ has a sticky note wall where people can post how the library has helped them. I don't know how much this is being seen by the city government right now, but I know it's been used in previous funding efforts (e.g. on NYPL's front page). There's also testimony that was used in budget hearings in May 2022.

Also, just spread the word! Check out books from your local branches, register/RSVP for events and classes, take advantage of as many services you can from NYPL, BPL and QPL. Stats should (in a perfect world) count for something in these decisions.

The NYPL has a fuck ton of money. They need to stop crying poverty those fucking grifters.

NYPL revenue/expenses: $448 million/$328 million

https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/131887440

BPL revenue/expenses: $168 million/$145 million

https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/111904261

QPL revenue/expenses: $149 million/$147 million

https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/111904262

There shouldn’t be cuts to libraries because the cuts that hit almost always hit the places that residents care about the most, like branch hours, programs, and services. The libraries are very top-heavy though. And the three systems really need to merge so there aren’t three $$$$ presidents and three of the same $$$$ admin departments. It’s also really confusing for library users that we have three separate systems.

The city wastes so much money it’s unbelievable. DOE, NYPD, MTA, etc. disasters. Look at the city pay site and check out the salaries for some jobs. $250k jobs to people’s friends. So much corruption

> My Citizen App scans all the police and fire traffic.

No it doesn't. There are roughly over 3000 911 calls a day. Even excluding all the purely medical calls, do you think every single one is on Citizen?

[deleted]

Which ones appear? What's the algorithm?

Why do you think I’m a Lyft driver? Because I’m not. It’s easy to find out just by reading my other post right next to it.

As a whole country, our PISA score sucks compared to other OECD countries despite spending multiple times more. And NYC DOE per head budget is almost double the national average while performing in line with the average

you realize Citizen isn't accurate right? LOL

The DOE also deals with incredibly unique issues like space and literal tones of thousands of homeless children but go off.

they serve 3 different geographic areas though.

you can order books you want through the library system, it just takes a while given yhe number of people and the limited copies a library has.

the library also offers a lot of community service. they offer job skills training for adults, translation services, government aid help workshops etc. I frequently use mine for 3d printing.

a lot of the city are immigrants and the library provides many essential service for these families.

I don’t know why this is getting voted down but it’s the truth .

Because people don't want to know the truth. QPL is the only one that might be hurting for money, but they're also run by a bunch of grifters.

BPL is the only one I haven't heard anything bad about.

What does the the NYPD have to do with this story?

So does basically every city agency.

Again don’t know why these kind of statements are being voted down ? I work for NYPL and see this every year. Never knew Reddit had so many Tony MarKKK’s boot lickers on here.

https://reddit.com/r/nyc/comments/zhqq68/_/izo1nxu/?context=1

I can’t wait to see them start using a flamethrower drone.

https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/zg1rvr/a_flamethrower_drone_taking_out_a_wasp_nest/

bk and queens are like..the same chunk of land. i couldnt tell you where the dividing line even is. if bronx manhatten SI can manage a system crossing water twice, you can figure out how to make QPL and BPL a single thing.

bk and queens are like..the same chunk of land. i couldnt tell you where the dividing line even is. if bronx manhatten SI can manage a system crossing water twice, you can figure out how to make QPL and BPL a single thing.

Can't speak for the entire system, but at someone who uses the Stavros Niarchos library quite often, there are more than a few employees that I've never seen do anything other than stand idly around and chat to each other.

I'm always curious where the votes come from but suspect the party affiliated groups have a solid voting base and unfortunately voter turn out is low. The amount of rational people who actually vote aren't enough to outweigh the party backed candidate supporters and anyone they win over through pork barrel promises.

So is the money going from the library system to the NYPD?