Across city, people rally to save their branch libraries

With BPL trustees meeting Tuesday to discuss how to start closing neighborhood branches, patrons are organizing to keep that from happening:

Kelly Young writes a letter in support of the Roslindale branch:

... I know people have made the argument that students have access to school libraries, so why do they need public libraries. As you know, that's really not the case in Boston. Budget cuts and space constraints mean that many Boston schools, particularly in the West Zone, don't have their own libraries. Schools often help students get their own library cards, but what good will that do if these students don't have their own neighborhood library?

I know it's not the flashiest branch, but I, personally, will be heart-broken if Roslindale loses its neighborhood library.

Mike Mennonno writes the branches are simply too important to close now:

... [T]he populations they serve already too vulnerable to abandon them when the going gets tough. And despite what many who can afford home access to the internet and for whom a trip to the local bookstore has replaced dropping by the library believe, the role of libraries will become more, not less vital in a future where much of the knowledge we have access to in them now is sequestered behind pay walls. The digital divide aligns with the income divide. The folks who most need access to what public libraries can provide are obviously those who are most vulnerable to branch closure.

Andrew Carnegie, that great entrepreneur and philanthropist, once said, "There is not such a cradle of democracy upon the earth as the Free Public Library." Libraries are not luxuries, and their closure wherever they still serve a population that needs them, is not an option. ...

The Jamaica Plain Gazette reports users of Jamaica Plain's three libraries are organizing to keep them open.

Matt Conti notes that the Boston Public Library Foundation has a Facebook page to rally support around libraries.

Faegirl objects to Mayor Menino seeming a bit too eager to close libraries:

... How about this, Tom ... Instead of you closing libraries and putting dozens, if not more, of librarians out of work (and onto unemployment) how about you stop taking a paycheck from the city of Boston? How about a few of the higher paid people take a lower paycheck or none, and allow these hard working people to keep their jobs? ...

Chinatown Blogger writes the crisis might actually show the way for Chinatown to finally get its own branch - a small, neighborhood-funded storefront similar to last year's temporary Chinatown Storefront Library.