Politics & Government

Friends of the Library Delivers Postcards Against Cuts

Members oppose proposed cuts that could mean reduced staff and information services.

Library lovers are making their voices heard in the wake of .

A day after Leggett (D) proposed slashing the budget for county libraries by 9.8 percent—about $2.8 million—members of Friends of the Library of Montgomery County delivered hundreds of postcards and petitions to the County Council offices calling for county officials to support library funding.

"We'd like a little of that," Aileen Klein, a Friends of the Library board member, said of the $2.8 million on the chopping block.

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Under Leggett's budget proposal, which must be approved by the County Council in May, no libraries would close nor would their hours change, but there would be changes to how the system operates, county libraries director B. Parker Hamilton wrote in a memorandum, the text of which was provide to Patch by Klein.

is one of 12 library branches that will provide "Community Branch" services with collections that are less broad with less-frequent programming services, less service hours and lower staffing levels for information services, Hamilton said. The other libraries include Aspen Hill, Quince Orchard, Gaithersburg Interim, Damascus, Davis, Marilyn Praisner, Olney, Kensington Park, Little Falls, White Oak and Poolesville branches.

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"Because of the general reductions in staffing, frequency of unplanned interruptions to information services is expected to be higher than in Area branches," Hamilton wrote.

Staffing would be cut in a number of libraries, including Silver Spring, Twinbrook, Chevy Chase and Long Branch, and information service staff would be eliminated on Sundays.

The library system "will maintain four 'Area' lead branches at Germantown, Rockville, Bethesda and Wheaton branches," Hamilton wrote. "These branches will provide full library services (collection, service hours, programming and information services). 

On March 16, Klein, wearing an orange T-shirt with FOL's motto "Libraries Matter, No More Cuts," joined FOL members and executive director Ari Z. Brooks to deliver to the County Council offices about 700 postcards from the White Oak, Rockville Memorial, Davis, Marilyn J. Praisner and Silver Spring FOL chapters. They also delivered nearly 1,300 signatures on a petition calling for library funding and more than 50 letters from patrons and in support of libraries.


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