Libraries are considered safe spaces for virtually all communities––seniors, homeless individuals, students and working families. They store rare collections and artifacts, provide free research materials and safe study space, offer educational and English language courses, access to the internet, and provide computer and job training. For lower-income, Black, brown, or immigrant communities these things are crucial to survival.
To protest the loss of library services due to city budget cuts, totaling $46 million this year, book lovers came together in Brooklyn this past weekend to hold a candlelight vigil.
The Brooklyn Public Library (BPL), The New York Public Library (NYPL), and Queens Public Library (QPL) leadership in a joint statement said that public libraries provide vital services that are a lifeline for many New Yorkers. Despite cuts, they remain committed to continuing to serve communities as best they can in challenging times.
“There is more than one way to ban a book. There’s a way to ban a book where you take it off the shelf and then there’s systematically defunding our public institutions, systematically defunding the public sector workers who make it possible,” said American Library Association (ALA) President Emily Drabinski, who lives in Brooklyn and attended the vigil.
Drabinski is unsure why libraries are constantly targeted for budget cuts as opposed to police or jails, but she takes it as a sign of the city’s priorities. She said the budget cuts indicate a lack of support for school libraries and students in the face of the city’s immense literacy challenges, which Adams launched reading initiatives and more dyslexia screening to combat.
“It doesn’t make any sense why he would underfund or defund the very structures and institutions that are best positioned to fulfill [the] ostensible position as mayor. I find it very confusing,” said Drabinski.
The libraries said that the cuts are a result of the 5% mid-year city plan to close gaps in the budget that Mayor Eric Adams announced last month for fiscal year 2024. There could potentially be another 5% mid-year budget cut in January. “If this additional round of budget cuts is enacted, libraries will be forced to further reduce hours, including ending universal six-day service, which New Yorkers fought hard to restore in 2015,” they said.
The NYPL and QPL suspended all Sunday service on Dec. 3, and Dec. 17 was the last day of Sunday service at all BPL branches. The decision to close libraries on Sundays was difficult but ultimately that day was chosen because it’s the most expensive day of service and most difficult to staff, said library leaders.
Pre-emancipation in the U.S., a large portion of enslaved or free African descendants and native peoples in this country risked being tortured or killed if they learned to read and write under various anti-literacy laws passed mostly in Southern slave states. During the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s and ’70s, “education was promoted as a great weapon against racism” and libraries were regarded as “temples of learning” and a means to “liberation” by many Black leaders, wrote librarian Ruth C. Shog. They continue to be reliable and safe cultural centers in Black and brown communities to this day.
“In Black and brown communities we see lots of activity and engagement in the library,” said Drabinski. “The number of people using public libraries who are African American is a higher rate than their white counterparts. And that includes people who don’t identify as readers.”
Some in the city’s Black literary community are diametrically opposed to the mayor’s cuts.
Dr. Brenda M. Greene is the founder and executive director at the Center for Black Literature (CBL), an English professor, and a senior special assistant to the provost at City University of New York (CUNY’s) Medgar Evers College. “The mayor’s budget cuts to the libraries are devastating to our students, educators, and the community. At a time when books are being banned, history is being censored, homelessness is on the rise, and crime and violence are increasing, cutting the library’s budget is antithetical to what the city should be supporting and promoting in our community,” said Greene in a statement.
Greene said that libraries have been “a safe haven” for Black and brown youth for many decades, providing a nurturing and supportive setting for those who do not have the space in their homes to read, write, research, study, and participate in workshops and events that enrich and expand their minds. She thinks cutting these services “sends the wrong message about the power of books and what we value.” Libraries also provide alternative ways for the community to critically examine the issues and to interact with poets, scholars, and literary writers, she said.
“Public libraries supplemented the book mobiles that many of us grew up with,” said Greene. “I eagerly looked forward to the book mobiles that came once a week because there were no libraries close to my home. Books took me to many places and helped me to explore my own and other worlds. If we are truly committed to ensuring that we have a literate and informed culture, then our libraries should be the last place where we employ budget cuts. The mayor and his team must find a way to turn these cuts around.”
Diane Richards is the executive director of the Harlem Writers Guild and a writer, playwright, music producer. She is strongly against cuts to city libraries like the internationally famous Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem, which began in the home of Arturo Alfonso Schomburg––an Afro Latino scholar that dedicated his life to collecting the works of Africans, Blacks, Latinos, and Caribbeans across the diaspora.
“It happens often. Arts are cut, music, the kinds of things in schools they feel they can cut,” said Richards. “But it has such a negative impact on young adults, children, and even grown adults. We need to read, we need to continue to hone our skills. Writing, reading, knowing our culture, and history. It’s academic.”
City Council members have also railed against the cuts to libraries.
“Libraries are most certainly a community’s source for information, empowering those browsing the stacks with an almost unlimited fountain of knowledge on all subjects. This is especially true of New York City’s public library system. But, more than that, libraries are civic hubs,” said Councilmember Crystal Hudson. “They serve as places for community gathering, socializing, and vital programming, and they are also one of the few places in the city where New Yorkers of all generations can interact naturally. Cuts to library funding jeopardize all of that.”
Hudson added that the proposed cuts will have outsized impacts in Black and brown, poor and working class communities that rely the most on public services.
Councilmember Sandra Ung said in a statement that one of her top priorities was reopening the Flushing branch of Queens Public Library, which had been closed since the start of the pandemic, because she knew it was an important resource to the district’s largely immigrant community.
“It’s where children improve their reading skills, parents learn English, and residents develop new skills they can use to advance their careers or transition to a new one,” said Ung. “The administration has made difficult decisions to address a grim budget outlook, but I will continue to work with my colleagues in the City Council to find solutions to ensure that our city’s three public library systems have the resources and funding to continue to provide critical services to our community.”
Council Member Lincoln Restler, who attended the vigil organized by Urban Librarians United on Sunday, is an avid lover of libraries. He noted that there is constantly a fight between city council and Adams to keep library funding in the city’s “austerity” budget last year and this year.
“There is no need for the mayor’s cuts. It is wrong, it is shameful, it is ideologically driven and we must fight back,” said Restler.
Ariama C. Long is a Report for America corps member and writes about politics for the Amsterdam News. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep her writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://bit.ly/amnews1.