It's Our City is a project that uses TV, Radio and Web
to promote civic engagement in the Philadelphia region.Announcement of Learning Centers not good enough for library activists
Monday, December 29th, 2008 at 11:04 pm - by Its Our City Staff. Filed under: Budget.
By Tom MacDonald
Click below to listen to this story.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Mayor Michael Nutter has announced a plan to replace some of the services offered city libraries set to close Thursday and some activists aren’t satisfied.
The mayor says an after school program offered at the 11 libraries scheduled to be closed this week will be set up in the same communities as the libraries. Mayor Nutter says that will give thousands of children who used the libraries an alternative place to go after school.
Nutter: “The young people who had been going to one site in most instances are the people going to the new site. in a couple of these situations one the location is literally the same building, in others, maybe three maybe four blocks away, they are all in the same community.”
Mayor Nutter says the libraries themselves with be converted to learning centers, with community partners supplying the people and money to run them.
Eleanor Childs of the Montessori Genesis 2 School says she’s not happy.
Childs: “I absolutely hate this idea. We need libraries. A knowledge center is not a library, many children don’t even use the LEAP program. They go to the library to read.”
What the learning centers offer may vary from place to place. Mayor Nutter says the deals with some partners are almost done, but he doesn’t want to make an announcement until all the deals are complete.
Share your thoughts
We are continuing to gather your thoughts and feedback on the library closures. Are you in a neighborhood that will be directly affected by these closures? If you’re not a regular or even occasional library user, what are your thoughts on the Mayor’s plan? Feel free to let us know in the comments.
December 30th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
I don’t think this is a good idea. Privatizing the public, civic space of the “free” library system is not a step forward for our city or our democracy. We need better information and true critical examination of the nature of our current problem. The sudden fiscal crisis is not the fault of citizens who use the libraries. It is possible that the cash flow problem will be eased early in ‘09 through Obama’s revitalization plan and in that case it would be wrong for this moment of crisis be used to enact permanent, detrimental change to civic life in Philadelphia. The libraries already operate under conditions of deprived funding, yet they are one of the few functional successes this city can claim.
We need to know how much of this “urgent” change is due to the crisis or due to the mayor’s economic philosophies regarding privatization. This didn’t really come up during the election because Nutter was so clearly head of the class during public forums. He was the most knowledgeable about the issues and his campaign was informative. But it turns out that he has ideology regarding public versus private financing and, at this moment, that is turning out to be very very important. It is possible that his personal philosophies in combination with his mayoral interaction with the politically connected, economic elite in the Philadelphia area is limiting the range of actions for coping with this crisis. And for that reason, all good citizens demanding the full services of the Free Library system are doing exactly the right things. We need to keep up this pressure because we are defending civic life in Philadelphia.
Nutter needs to show his hand. He’s been secretive and he’s withholding important information. Wealthy corporate sponsors “volunteering” their support of “learning centers” are most likely getting a bargain. We live in a nation that subsidizes corporate interests at the expense of citizens and Philadelphia is no exception. We need more information.