Jacksonville's libraries should not be closed!

[ronchamblin]

For those who might wish to weigh through my stuff, I just slightly modified my post No. 14, which was a response to Stephen's insightful post no. 13.  I'm going for a bike ride.

[JayBird]

srill think this is just a scare tactic.

I'm in agreement 100%.  Seen it time and time again in city after city.  All a mayor has to do is say I'm closing down your fire station, school, library or firing a few of those policemen that are protecting your home and family.  Then average Joe says well I hate that I have to pay more in taxes, but at least I'll keep the services I've grown used to.  The mayor gets his money to fund the budget, average Joe gets to keep his quality of life, everyone remains happy until the next budget comes due.  Beginning to think this is just par for the course.  After all who would get motivated to increase taxes or form special finance districts to fund interest payments on loans or upgrade the office furniture in the administration offices at St James?  Not me.  This year it is libraries, okay I'll go with it.  Next year maybe it'll fire rescues turn.

[thelakelander]

It may be a scare tactic but in this case, this isn't Mayor Brown trying to scare anyone.  He's the one who's taken the position that taxes aren't going to be raised, hell or high water.  As long as that's the sentiment and we aren't doing anything to change our unsustainable fiscal issues, something is eventually going to have to hit the fan.

[Tacachale]

^Lake, this is about the mayor's pension deal. If the council doesn't approve it the cuts will go into effect (because he won't raise taxes). Unfortunately, various parties have noted issues with the pension deal so the libraries and other services may indeed be caught in the crossfire.

[tufsu1]

srill think this is just a scare tactic.

obviously....you don't choose aeas of community activism/involvement (like Riverside-Avondale, San Marco, and the Beaches) if it isn't your intent to get folks riled up to oppose this

[Dog Walker]

We need to move the libraries out of the budget gamesmanship.  Sign the petition!

[Redbaron616]

More information is needed to make a fair judgement on whether to keep a library open. For example, how many unique visitors visit the library per week? How does this compare to the past 5 and 10 year numbers? To blindly ask that they all stay open without a fair assessment does not benefit either the library system or the taxpayers.

[thelakelander]

^Isn't it kind of blind to focus in on believing any library should be closed before having more information on the city's overall budget?  I mean, close them and how much money do we really save in the grand scheme of things? Do that and have we even evaluated the resulting long term economic, safety, and environmental costs on the community? Sometimes to me, it seems like we spend too much time focusing on placing band aids on paper cuts while totally ignoring the leg infected with gangrene.

[Tacachale]

^I posted in another thread recently with some numbers:

Ben, according to the FY 2011-2012 annual report, there were 4.5 million library visits. Over 218,702 people attended programs, including 13,556 at job search assistance programs. Book circulation was apparently 8.7 million, while e-book circulation was 188,693. Some of these figures appear to be down after the repeated budget, staff and hour cuts of the last few years, but despite that they're still way up since the expansion of the system in 2005.

http://jpl.coj.net/lib/Annual_Report_FY2011-12.pdf
http://jacksonville.com/opinion/editorials/2012-03-07/story/jacksonville-public-library-looks-answers-future

Individual libraries have different figures, but numbers don't tell the whole story. For instance, the Southeast Regional Branch on Gate Parkway presumably has high figures: it's in a well educated area, but more importantly it's the only library in a fast growing area. Folks come from many miles to go to it. Meanwhile, the Brentwood library may have lower numbers as it's in an impoverished area and are others within a few miles of it. However, if it closed, the 2.5 mile trek the the downtown library may be a lot more daunting for a carless family from the urban Northside than it would be for, say, a Baymeadows family with 2 cars. Higher stats doesn't always mean better services or outcomes; the Brentwood library is serving an invaluable educational need for its neighborhood.

Overall use was unsurprisingly at a high after 2005 when we had just finished all the new libraries and expansions. However, soon afterward the budget cuts started; hours were cut, the collection reduced, and staff was laid off.

So, if you're going to look at the numbers you have to understand the area context as well as the changes in the system, which have often been arbitrary. And if you're going to question the value of investments like libraries, you need to ask whether we should be happy with Duval County's educational outcomes as they are at present.

[Dog Walker]

More information is needed to make a fair judgement on whether to keep a library open. For example, how many unique visitors visit the library per week? How does this compare to the past 5 and 10 year numbers? To blindly ask that they all stay open without a fair assessment does not benefit either the library system or the taxpayers.

Sure, cut back the hours and days of operation, stay open only during 9-5 hours, close on Sundays, then point at the figures and say, "Library usage is decreasing so we need to cut their funding even more."  DUH!

[fsquid]

srill think this is just a scare tactic.

obviously....you don't choose aeas of community activism/involvement (like Riverside-Avondale, San Marco, and the Beaches) if it isn't your intent to get folks riled up to oppose this

thats my thinking.

[nandrewsn]

This one was in Florida Times Union last week 6/24/2013.
CLOSING LIBRARIES

Losing quality of life
Closing the libraries is never the solution. It can lead to more problems with high crime and illiteracy. There should be other alternatives to fix the budget and reduce the county's expenses.

Libraries are necessities.

Many people depend on the libraries to have access to the Internet to find jobs or to read the news. Many people borrow books from the library because they can't afford to buy them.

Many families take their children to spend their time off at the library because they can't afford to take them somewhere else. Also many seniors go to the libraries to read or to just socialize. Students and book clubs meet at the libraries.

Libraries are the source of knowledge and information, and we live in the information age. Closing the libraries is a message to the poor people that they have no right to have access to the information.

If people are not able to be informed, how can they make a right decision?

When there are no libraries, there is no culture, so there will be more crimes.

Nader Andrews,

Jacksonville

[Dog Walker]

srill think this is just a scare tactic.

obviously....you don't choose aeas of community activism/involvement (like Riverside-Avondale, San Marco, and the Beaches) if it isn't your intent to get folks riled up to oppose this

thats my thinking.

The Mayor is forcing the budget cuts.  The Library Board selected the branches to be closed and the hours to be cut.  Of course they chose a couple of branches and days that were sure to cause the most outrage.  They are a pretty smart bunch and no strangers to how the budget process works.

The Mayor made a really dumb move with his across the board cuts rather than setting priorities and the Library Board is making him pay the political price for it.

[ronchamblin]

If one believes that one of the most important objectives to achieve in our county is that of improved education and overall cultural enhancement, closing any libraries and decreasing hours will certainly make more difficult the achievement of those objectives. 

Although the conveyance of information, ideas, and instruction to citizens, young and old, can be somewhat accomplished via television and the Internet, these media are prone to change, frivolities, and warpage due to the need for advertising, and due to the impact of controlling entities swayed by obsession with profits. 

Books and libraries are traditional, stable, and more prone to offer genuine and fundamental aspects of media, learning, and the cultural qualities we need in the environment.  A minimum quantity of libraries seem to be necessary for ensuring that knowledge, and a social environment encouraging its spread, as offered in books and the library itself, is available to all citizens in the county.   

[Trixie]

FYI, the Board of Library Trustees publicly posts the minutes of their monthly Board meetings, which are open to the public.  Public comments may be made at the start of the meeting.  The draft of the minutes from their June 13, 2013, meeting (see "Strategic Discussion: FY14 Budget Update") tells some of the back story about their struggles with and latest responses to the City budget cuts:

http://jpl.coj.net/lib/boardreports/06-13-13-DRAFT.pdf

Here's a link to the Board of Library Trustees' web page, with their prior Board minutes and notices:

http://jpl.coj.net/lib/board.html

Board of Library Trustees - monthly Board Meeting

    Date: Thursday, July 11, 2013
    Time: Noon
    Location: Main Library
    Conference Level Multipurpose Room 1
    303 N Laura St
    Jacksonville, Florida 32202
    Contact: Andi Hammond
    904-630-8717
    catherih@coj.net

Thanks for your efforts to save our libraries!