Why Is New York City Planning to Sell and Shrink Its Libraries?

Defend our libraries, don't defund them. . . . . fund 'em, don't plunder 'em

Mayor Bloomberg defunded New York libraries at a time of increasing public use, population growth and increased city wealth, shrinking our library system to create real estate deals for wealthy real estate developers at a time of cutbacks in education and escalating disparities in opportunity. It’s an unjust and shortsighted plan that will ultimately hurt New York City’s economy and competitiveness.

It should NOT be adopted by those we have now elected to pursue better policies.

Monday, December 16, 2013

PHOTO & VIDEO GALLERY: December 16, 2013 Books Not Billionaires action at the 42nd Street Central Reference Library

Books Not Billionaires event organized by Library Lovers League.
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From the video below
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They're planning WHAT for New York Public Library?  (Click through to Barbara Ross website video for best watching)
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"Renovations" is the correct word for sell-offs, significant shrinkage of space and alterations of function
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One of the books that attended
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From the CBS News Reporting on the event
See also Committee To Save The New York Public Library page for this event.

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

PHOTO & VIDEO GALLERY: November 20, 2013 Rally Outside NYPL Trustees Meeting

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Getting ready for their "DeMille" moment- Photography technicians wait for (deluded?) NYPL Trustees to descend from their trustees meeting to capture them with an image posed on the staircase that will make them look beautiful in the next annual report.
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Citizens Defending Libraries Rally, New York Public Library, 20 November 2013

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Monday, November 4, 2013

PHOTO & VIDEO GALLERY: November 4, 2014 Protest At Gala Where NYPL Honors Bloomberg A Mayor Selling Shrinking and Underfunding Libraries

This page is being updated.  Click on pictures to enlarge or videos to play.
Coverage by the Committee to Save the New York Public Library available here.

Monday Night, on the eve of the mayoral election, Citizens Defending Libraries and the Committee to Save The New York Public Library protested the NYPL's annual fundraising gala honoring Mayor Bloomberg who has been defunding libraries despite their substantially increasing use and has been presiding approvingly over the city’s planned sell-off of libraries and shrinkage of the library system.

In the case of the consolidating shrinkage of the NYPL’s Central Library Plan (recently redubbed the “42nd Street Library Renovation”) the public will likely suffer a significant net loss as substantial sums are spent to vastly reduce public library space and gut the research stacks of the 42nd Street Central Reference Library.  More than $150 million of taxpayer money is proposed to be spent with perhaps a total of around a half billion public dollars being diverted from other potential uses to shrink more than 380,000 square feet of library space down to less than 80,000 square feet.

Meanwhile, other libraries have been sold like the Donnell Library (sold to net a sum far below its value to the public) or are being sold like the Brooklyn Heights and Pacific Branch Library.

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Carolyn E. McIntyre, Citizens Defending Libraries Rally, 4 November 2013


Citizens Defending Libraries Rally, New York Public Library, 4 November 2013

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