Save NYPL!

Marsh and I had such a fabulous time In New York last year, the highlight for me was our tour of NYPL, so I was distressed to see that they are facing a pretty big funding cut.  There's a campaign against the cuts, this was my 2 cents:

"I'm a librarian from the UK and visited NYPL last year.  The stunning architecture apart what impressed me most about it was the open and welcoming attitude.  I was amazed to find that anyone could step in to read and to enquire.  It's a kind of openness that one doesn't find everywhere and that makes it even more important to preserve.

In times of economic hardship libraries are often the only places people can go to access current employment publications and access valuable IT resources.  Without these, ordinary people become disenfranchised from  our digital culture.  Tough economic times should prompt us to safeguard library services, not cut them."  

The library is open to anyone who lives, works, studies or pays property taxes in the State of New York, that's 19,541,453 residents alone.  They also make special provision to highlight specific library resources and help for job seekers.  This is just one instance of library cutbacks threatening services, there are many more across the UK and further afield.  I realise that I don't have the unenviable job of balancing the books every year, and that there's a lot to pay for with less and less money, but I believe that cutting funding to public libraries is nothing but a short term solution.