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This hasn’t been a good week for library trustees. Yesterday, as outraged protestors led by Citizens Defending Libraries rallied outside Brooklyn Public Library shortly before a trustees meeting, Governor Cuomo signed into law a bill (S.6893-B) that will significantly reform operations of the Queens Public Library Board of Trustees. Introduced by Assembly member Jeffrion Aubry… Continue reading No Trust for Trustees: New Law Reforms Queens Library Board

              Our allies at Citizens Defending Libraries have a new petition demanding full funding for New York City libraries. The petition has already earned over 500 signatures in just two days. We endorse increased funding and advocate that it be accompanied by greater transparency and accountability. We’d like to… Continue reading New Petition Urges Mayor to Fund Our Libraries

As reported recently in the New York Times, NYPL reveals that the Central Library Plan would have cost over $500 million, a far cry from their earlier $300 million estimate: But officials, for the first time, revealed that the original plan, mostly scrapped last month in large part because of questions about the price tag, would… Continue reading True Cost of Defeated Central Library Plan Revealed

An outstanding editorial in The New Yorker gets it exactly right: Physical, public space and physical books will continue to be vital to a library whose research collection, amassed over more than a century, is a cultural treasure… Given the importance of books, it follows that as many as possible should be on-site. Keeping them there, and… Continue reading New Yorker Magazine: Bring Back the Books!

The leadership of NYPL has finally come to its senses and abandoned its hugely unpopular Central Library Plan. All of us at the Committee to Save the New York Public Library are gratified that the Mid-Manhattan Library will be saved and the stacks in the 42nd Street Library left intact. Now it remains for us to persuade the library leadership to fix the mechanical systems… Continue reading Statement from the Committee to Save the New York Public Library: Thank You to All Who Helped Make this Victory Possible!

In a victory for library users across the city, the New York Public Library has announced it will abandon the hugely unpopular Central Library Plan.  The Mid-Manhattan Library will be saved and renovated, and the 42nd St. Library stacks will be kept intact “for present”.  But NYPL is refusing to return the books to the… Continue reading NYPL Abandons Central Library Plan – Roundup of Coverage

The Wall Street Journal confirms the earlier NY Times article.  The NYPL is abandoning the Central Library Plan.  BUT THERE’S A BIG CATCH: “Under the new plan, the book stacks would be preserved but would remain empty of books. The research collection would instead be stored in climate-controlled storage space under Bryant Park.” The only thing sillier than… Continue reading Wall Street Journal: NYPL Abandoning Central Library Plan, But Won’t Return Books to 42nd St. Stacks

Can this be true???!!!!  The New York Times reports the end of the Central Library Plan: In a striking about-face, the New York Public Library has abandoned its plan to turn part of its research flagship on 42nd Street into a circulating library and instead will renovate the Mid-Manhattan library on Fifth Avenue, several library trustees said. There’s… Continue reading NY Times: “Public Library Abandons Plan to Revamp 42nd Street Building”

A beautiful statement from The Belladonna Collaborative, a Brooklyn-based feminist poetry colllective, on their reasons for opposing the Central Library Plan: We write books with the thought that our books will be one day in a place where people will read them. That place for books is a library; it is that simple. That place is not a… Continue reading Belladonna Collaborative: We All Need the Books

Richard Stallman, President and Founder of the Free Software Foundation and creator of the GNU/Linux operating system, speaks out about NYPL’s Central Library Plan: Don’t switch the NYPL to e-books! Typical commercial e-books don’t give people or libraries the same freedoms as a printed book. In ethical terms, they are a big change for the worse.… Continue reading Free Software Activist Richard Stallman: NYPL Plan is “Like Ripping Your Feet Off to Make Cudgels to Bash Yourself on the Head”