Library suffers from cuts

A person wandering into Carnegie Library’s main branch in Oakland enters under the… A person wandering into Carnegie Library’s main branch in Oakland enters under the inscription “Free to the People.”

Until recently, the engraving above the library was true seven days a week for the more than 280 organizations that patronized it.

Since this summer’s funding cuts for Pennsylvania public libraries, however, the promise has become more difficult to maintain, with the library omitting Sundays from its schedule.

The cuts reduced Carnegie Library’s government funding by 50 percent, or $2.4 million. The reduction struck a blow to the library system’s hours of operation, as well as its ability to provide reading programs to the people who need them most.

“We can’t send staff out when only two people are working at a branch,” said Blanche McManus, regional manager of the Squirrel Hill branch.

Certain services, ranging from adult literacy programs to Head Start, no longer have staff members going into communities and providing outreach.

On July 1, all branches cut hours by an average of 21 percent, according to Lane Cigna, communications director for the library. Now, the 2.2 million people who patronize the library annually must find time during a smaller range of hours, while also vying for the increasingly limited resources available.

In addition to opening an hour later and closing an hour earlier each day during the week, the Carnegie Library in Oakland no longer operates on Sunday at all. And while daily overdue fees have gone up from a nickel to a quarter, the library now receives 10 percent less material than it did before.

The adjustments have not stopped patrons from coming in, Cigna said, pointing out that “as the economy weakens, library patronage increases.”

People become dependent on libraries as educational resources, she explained, and “the catch,” now, is that when citizens need them most, they are having financial trouble meeting those needs.

Cigna also voiced her concern about the message that the funding cut sent to public libraries.

“Other areas were whacked, at most, 10 to 20 percent,” she said about other state-funded organizations, adding that public libraries lost half of their funding.

Carnegie Library staff members have remained diligent in sending a message to the government. In teams of three, members travel to Washington, D.C. and visit senators, hoping to persuade them to restore funding.

Although no one seems to be against libraries – state Rep. Dan Frankel, D-Allegheny, and his family frequent the Squirrel Hill branch – McManus wondered how much representatives can do to help libraries when other services, like Port Authority Transit and health care programs, are also seeking restoration of funds.

Meanwhile, McManus awaits seeing what the legislative branch will decide.

McManus recalled that, on the first day of hour cuts, at least 50 patrons lined up at each set of doors to her branch.

Would she be surprised if the funding was fully restored?

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” McManus said. “I’d be delighted.”