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By adamg - 7/1/10 - 5:00 pm

The city budget approved by the city council yesterday has enough money to keep four branches in Dorchester, Brighton, South Boston and East Boston open long enough to let library trustees and library backers try to find more money to keep them open permanently.

The city council also agreed to seek permission from the state legislature to increase the number of library trustees and to make fundraising an official part of their job.

By adamg - 6/21/10 - 3:09 pm

BPL trustees today voted to keep four doomed branches open awhile longer to plan for their shutdown. But even more cuts could be in store if the legislature passes a proposal to lop $2.4 million off its BPL funding as punishment for closing branches.

By adamg - 6/16/10 - 9:54 am

People of Boston Branches reports the South End and Lower Mills branches will lose all security-guard service effective July 1, while the Fields Corner and Hyde Park branches will be guardless most of the time.

By adamg - 6/11/10 - 9:52 am

City Councilor Felix Arroyo gets library officials to at least think about reversing their decision to shut branches in Brighton, South Boston, Dorchester and East Boston, if the city or state can come up with enough money to keep them open, the Dorchester Reporter reports.

By adamg - 6/3/10 - 8:06 pm

Just say no to library closings: Protester outside City Hall this evening.Protester outside City Hall this evening.

By adamg - 5/30/10 - 10:24 am

Friends of the Faneuil Library report plans for a rally Thursday at City Hall before a City Council hearing on the library budget for the coming fiscal year.

The rally starts at 5 p.m.; the hearing at 6 p.m.

BPL trustees have voted to shut the Faneuil, Orient Heights, Dorchester Lower Mills and Washington Village (South Boston). Their proposed budget will also mean staff and service cuts at the Copley Square main branch.

By adamg - 5/11/10 - 8:28 am

Unlike the BPL, some of whose trustees say they'd probably voted to shut branches even if they had the money, the New York Public Library is actively fighting to keep all its branches open.

Via Margaret.

By adamg - 5/4/10 - 5:03 pm

Howitzer?

City Hall grows tired of whining about library cuts and demonstrates its resolve in Copley Square today.

Or maybe some Marines were showing off their weapons as part of Marine Week.

By adamg - 4/28/10 - 5:37 pm

State Rep. Linda Dorcena-Forry reports Friends of the Lower Mills Library (slated for closing) have used some money from recent fundraising to print up "Save Our Libraries" lawn signs and banners. Contact her office if you need one.

By adamg - 4/28/10 - 4:24 pm

Dottie Hottie introduces us to Mr. Guy, the children's librarian at the BPL branch on Adams Street:

... The most recent gig was a veritable pajama jam. Harris donned his jammies, read several bedtimey tomes, told a story by way of felt/velcro apron attaches, tried his hand at a few puppets, led the groupies in a round of songs to the tune of his banjo (!!!), and closed the hour with a coloring/gluesticking activity that the groupies took home to their refrigerator walls of pride. ...

By adamg - 4/21/10 - 8:27 am

Jessica Baumgart provides some details on the imminent smushing together of the state's six regional library systems into a single Mass. Library System due to budget cutbacks.

By adamg - 4/16/10 - 4:52 pm

The Dorchester Reporter reports that 12 of the state reps whose districts cover Boston have filed an amendment to the state budget to revive four Boston Public Library branches now faced with death.

None of the five reps who didn't sign the measure - Marty Walsh (D-Savin Hill), Marie St. Fleur (D-Uphams Corner), Angelo Scaccia (D-Readville), Michael Rush (D-West Roxbury) and Eugene O'Flaherty (D-Chelsea) have BPL branches faced with closing in their districts.

By Anonymous - 4/16/10 - 11:16 am

“Not the computers, not the high-tech, not the downloadables,” said Boston resident Maria Rodriguez at a March 9 Boston Public Library board meeting. “Libraries are about books and librarians. I didn’t hear anything about that in your vision.” Rodriguez was one of nearly 400 people who came for details about the planned closure of as many as 10 of the city’s 26 library branches and the layoff of up to 25% of the staff in order to address a $3.6-million budget shortfall for FY2011, the Boston Globe reported March 10. [...]

By adamg - 4/14/10 - 8:01 am

Bettina Norton worries nobody is standing up for the research and collections departments at the BPL in Copley Square; musical scholars are already having problems gaining access to material in the library's large Brown Collection, she writes.

By Anonymous - 4/10/10 - 3:54 pm

We need a majority of the Boston City Council to veto the budget and demand that at least $3.6 million be added to the budget for BPL.

Click here to find you city councilor. Click here to write you city councilor and ask her or him to veto the budget and demand at least $3.6 million more be added for BPL to save all of our BPL libraries.

By adamg - 4/10/10 - 1:13 pm

Jim posts a copy of a letter from Tom Menino's East Boston liaison, Ernani DeAraujo, on the BPL trustee vote to shut the Orient Heights library. Among other things, DeAraujo writes:

We can arrange for book return pick up in the Heights and will experiment with delivery services for seniors who cannot walk to Meridian.

He also repeats the promised made by trustees to look at building a brand-new, 20,000-square foot library to serve all of East Boston.

By adamg - 4/10/10 - 12:55 pm

First, a confession: I haven't read an Adrian Walker column in months. Somebody tell me if I've missed anything. But Mike Durant posts today that Walker talked to Menino, who admitted that this whole branch closing thing isn't really about money after all, so I wanted to take a look.

And I promptly remembered why I stopped reading Walker - Why waste my time on a bloviator who writes stuff like the following?

By adamg - 4/9/10 - 10:51 pm

Hands off Faneuil

Supporters of the Faneuil BPL branch didn't let rain stop their candlelight vigil in Oak Square this afternoon - that's what umbrellas are for. Residents, city councilors Mark Ciommo, Ayanna Pressley and Felix Arroyo, state Reps Kevin Honan and Michael Moran all vowed to reverse today's vote by BPL trustees to shut Faneuil and three other branches.

Ciommo and Moran, both strong Menino supporters, said they were disappointed by the mayor's role in shutting the branches; Moran said he has never been so disappointed in the mayor. Moran said the issue is not money, but that Menino and BPL President Amy Ryan just don't like small branches. And he had some choice words for library Trustee Paul LaCamera for criticizing him and other legislators for not showing up this morning at a pre-ordained vote on closings:

By adamg - 4/9/10 - 10:36 am

Library trustees voted this morning to close branch libraries in Brighton's Oak Square, East Boston's Orient Heights, South Boston and Dorchester Lower Mills. City councilors Felix Arroyo, John Tobin and Ayanna Pressley, meanwhile, vowed to block any efforts to shut the branches.

"Today is not the end," Arroyo said.

Trustees unanimously rejected plans to shut either seven branches or keep all branches open but slash service hours at most locations in their effort to close a budget hole of more than $3 million.

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