Library closures have been met with lawsuits and protests as others work to find new funding sources.

The city’s budget crunch has book lovers looking for ways to keep 11 library branches open, reaching out to foundations, individuals and corporations. Mayor Michael Nutter says an announcement about a partnership is imminent.  But options may be limited for Philadelphia residents hoping to save their neighborhood libraries.  WHYY’s Susan Phillips reports.

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On one afternoon at the Fishtown Library, a young father checks out a DVD of Horton Hears A Who as children read to each other.  But this library is scheduled to be shuttered a week from now.

When the city announced the library closures back in November, library users took to the streets and the Friends of the Free Library started looking for other options.

Executive Director Amy Dougherty is pushing to keep all eleven libraries open with shortened hours.  She says there is progress on securing private donations.

Dougherty: “If we can keep these libraries open for another 6 months i think we’ll be able to find enough public private funding to keep these branches open beyond that.”

But Dougherty has a question.

Dougherty: “Is there a commitment on the part of the library administration to keep these branches open? And that’s what i question.”

Her question is a good one.  Administration officials say the city’s library system is too large for the current population.  But the mayor has said he’s open to other options such as privately funded learning centers.

The Fishtown Branch of the Free Library is targeted for closure despite a loyal and vocal group of users.

The ice rinks were saved by a partnership with a nonprofit foundation.  Ed Snider, Chairman of Comcast-Spectacor, agreed to pay to keep city ice rinks open for a year, but at $150,000, that’s a drop in the bucket compared to the $8 million dollars needed to keep the libraries open year-round.

Some doubt that the philanthropic model for preserving city services can work in the long run.  David Thornburgh is the Director of the Fels Institute of Government.

Thornburgh: “Most foundations and most companies like to see targeted investments in an organization or community that will bring that organization to another level.  But it’s much harder for them to provide ongoing, day-in-day-out, year after year support. So there’s kind of a mismatch of capacity and expectations i think.”

And, Thornburgh thinks maybe the mayor is right.  Maybe the city does have too many libraries for a shrinking population.

Thornburgh: “If the tough love strategy is real, that we just simply can’t afford the infrastructure that we built for five or six hundred thousand people who aren’t here anymore, then the city ought to stick to its guns.  I think this will be a test of the mayor and his budget people and their ability to communicate a message to the citizens about how their tax dollars are spent.”

If the angry tone at the mayor’s town hall meetings is any indication, Nutter seems to be failing this test.  Public outcries in response to library closings are not unusual.  The same thing happened in Jackson County, Oregon back in 2007.  In that case, all fifteen branches closed and the county ended up hiring a company to run their library system.  The business model is simple: fire all the workers, re-hire some at lesser pay and cut hours.  But Judy Baalson, business manager for Jackson County libraries seems happy with the arrangement.

Baalson: “This company has a lot of talent in it and a lot of depth, and they are able to move quickly.  They’re able to plan programs, they can just move so much more quickly than government could.”

But it’s unlikely Philadelphia, with its strong union workforce, could pull that off.

After years of failure by private companies, the Juniata Golf Course is doing better under a non-profit organization.

Philadelphia has tried a private contracting model with its municipal golf courses, but for the past two decades no company has made it work.  So one course decided to form its own non-profit and this model seems to be more successful.

Executive Director of Juniata Golf Course, Bob Wheeler, says community support and committed volunteers were able to do in one year what private companies couldn’t do in two decades.

A golfer takes a swing at the Juniata Golf Course

Wheeler: “The bottom line was they needed to make a profit, all we wanna do here is make the course better, service the community and we’re not here to make a profit.  We’re here to keep afloat really.”

But the golf course model depends heavily on volunteer labor and libraries need professional staffers.  Friends of the Free Library Director Amy Dougherty says that whatever they come up with, the safety of kids needs to be paramount.  Still, it’s a work in progress.

Dougherty: “A public private partnership, i think we’d be creating the model, and we have very smart people working on that right now.”

Dougherty hopes to prevent the closures but the clock is ticking.  Come January 1st, despite protests and a lawsuit, eleven libraries are scheduled shut down.

Have you read or heard about other models for running municipal libraries?  Is your neighborhood library targeted for closure?  Offer your thoughts, opinions and additional knowledge about this subject in the comments section below.