Brooklyn Public Library — Saved from the Budget Gallows

After a near-death experience, it seems that the Brooklyn Public Library has renewed life this week, after City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Mayor Bloomberg came to a budget restoration agreement. Here is the official statement (in entirety h/t citycouncil)

Six day library service, a long standing priority of Speaker Quinn and Council Members, will be maintained at libraries across the City.  The $46.5 million dollar restoration will allow libraries to avoid layoffs and ensure that New Yorkers have access to critically important job training services during the economic downturn, in addition to preserving access to vital services such as literacy programs and increased access to technology.

“Restoring funding to our City’s public libraries proves Speaker Quinn’s deep and abiding commitment to all that libraries promote: employment, literacy, community activism and so much more,” said Libraries Subcommittee Chair Vincent Gentile. “Fully funded libraries help communities and residents weather economic hardship, and on behalf of the tens of thousands of supporters of public libraries, I want to thank the Speaker for helping to keep neighborhoods and households strong in the coming fiscal year.”

The budget restoration also helps out ACS and various other city services

The agreement preserves essential core services, such as avoiding closure at 16 fire companies, maintaining city-wide, six-day library service and keeping current staff levels for child welfare workers at the Administration of Children’s Services (ACS).   The restoration will also preserve 31 classrooms at ACS childcare centers.

Friends of the NYPL and Brooklyn Public Library received this excited message from Facebook this morning.

Kate Kosturski, who headed up the Save NYC Libraries Facebook Group sent out the following note earlier today

Not too long ago, a friend said to me that people would just be “miffed” if the libraries closed. You weren’t miffed – you were enraged, pissed off (pardon language), mad as hell and not going to take it anymore – because YOU knew libraries mattered, now more than ever. You proved him wrong – and in that, you have ensured the intellectual and educational health and well-being of this city.

Keep fighting the good fight – it doesn’t stop here. Libraries work because WE do!

From the bottom of my heart – THANK YOU!

With love and warmest regards,

Kate

(BTW, a special shout out and holler to Ms. Kosturski for not only fighting the good fight, but also doing it while running a successful campaign for President of Pratt’s Library Sciences Student Association)

Well done to all those who signed the many petitions floating around. A special thank you to the many who sacrificed hours in their day to make the phone rounds. A mixed community with a singular vision can ge a heckuva tough force to fight. So… well done, Bayridgistanis…

If you’d like to contact Vincent Gentile (who is the Chair of the  Subcommittee on Libraries) to say thank you for his petitioning and legislative efforts on this one, you can hit him up at one of his two offices

District Office
718-748-5200
8703 3rd Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11209

Legislative Office
212-788-7363
250 Broadway
New York, NY 10007

You can also email him at vgentile@council.nyc.gov or or on his email at dlibner@council.nyc.gov ( the one provided at http://vincentgentile.blogspot.com/ ) .

You can contact Speaker Christine Quinn

District Office Address
224 West 30th St (Suite 1206)
New York, NY 10001

District Office Phone
(212) 564-7757

District Office Fax
(212)564-7347

Legislative Office Address
City Hall
New York, New York 10007

Legislative Office Phone
(212) 788-7210

Legislative Office Fax
(212) 788-7207

Contacting her electrionically works as follows. Go to her site

http://council.nyc.gov/d3/html/members/home.shtml

and click “Contact Speaker Quinn”