New Report

Mallory Phillips

October 8, 2009

New Report

Washington: Sorry, Library Is Closed

The New York Times Associated Press

September 3, 2009

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/03/us/03brfs-SORRYLIBRARY_BRF.html

In Seattle, Washington, the downtown central library and twenty-six branches decided to shut down their entire systems for a whole week to help save money. And I mean everything was shut down, from the branches, book drops, and web sites. The city had been told to reduce spending to make up for a $43 million gap in the 2009 budget. The library is trying to cut 2% of that, and with closing the library for a week, it is estimated that about $655,000 will be saved. As a result, about 700 library employees had to go a week without pay. During this week of closing, no books were due, and there were no fines. This is nothing new to Seattle; there are been closedowns for two weeks in 2002 and 2003 in effort to save money.

I think it is sad that the city was in so much financial trouble that they had to shut the library down for a week. If you think about it, that is a pretty long time. Some people rely heavily on libraries, and the city of Seattle let these people down during this week. Shutting the library down had good intentions to help the city save money, but think about all the people that were affected. The librarians and staff all went a week with pay. They may not seem that long to some people, but some people need that money. I think that they could have came up with some better ideas to save money than closing down this significant public place for a week.