Click on "Read More" below for a slide show of the 1/13/09 "People's Court of Philadelphia library protest.

WHYY’s Tom MacDonald was at City Hall today when the “People’s Court of Philadelphia” marched with what appears from the pictures to be a brass section to the mayor’s office where they delivered a document holding Mayor Nutter in contempt of their court.   It appears that the Mayor’s Chief of Staff Clay Armbrister was sent out to meet the crowd flanked by Press Secretary Doug Oliver (photo 13).  Such theatrics go a long way to (1) explain why the libraries have dominated coverage of the budget re-balancing plan and (2) demonstrate the passion of library supporters.

My favorite part of this circus is the performance of a the theatrical “librarians” who are chasing a rolling closed library and trying to get in… apparently without success (photos 6 and 7 in the slide show).  Tom’s story and thumbnails of the slide show pictures are available after the jump.

By Tom MacDonald, WHYY News

Click play button 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.

About 60 noisy protestors gathered at Philadelphia City Hall last night. They say Mayor Michael Nutter is in contempt of the people’s court for refusing to keep all the city’s libraries open.  The group put on some street theater to get their point across.

Amirah Naim of the Coalition to Save the Libraries used a cardboard library pulled by a bicycle to depict the rolling closures of the city library system.

Naim: “We have wheels on our float.  It’s like wheel of fortune.  You never know if a library is going to be open or closed today.”

Mock librarians chased after the trailer to dramatize the closures that are hitting the system because of staff shortages.  Then the citation was read by protestor Elenore Childs.

Childs: “For instituting unnecessary rolling closures and layoffs,  for changing library procedures the People’s Court of Philadelphia finds that Mayor Nutter and his accomplice, Library Director Reardon are in contempt of court.”

The protestors presented their mock court order to the mayor’s Chief of Staff Clay Armbrister.  He says the city is doing it’s best to keep facilities open.

Armbrister: “As the mayor’s indicated we’re in a very tough budget situation which necessitated some very unfortunate choices, our preference would be to have a stable system.”

The protestors say they want a face to face meeting with the mayor.  Armbrister says he will convey the message.

Click on any photo below to open slide show. Use left and right arrows to navigate slide show when it appears: